Gallagher: US 'running low' on weapons after supplying Ukraine

Trent Baker
Breitbart
Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00 UTC

© file photo

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy observes US-supplied Javelin missiles.

House Armed Services Committee member Mike Gallagher (R-WI) on Friday warned that the United States was "running low" on its weapons stockpiles after helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia's attack.

According to Gallagher, the United States has burned through seven years' worth of weapons in assisting Ukraine. He told Fox News Channel's America's Newsroom that this was important because Taiwan also needed help dealing with Chinese aggression.

Gallagher said of the Biden administration.:

"I think their efforts can fall into categories of good, bad, and ugly. On the good, I think Secretary Austin made the right call in going to Kyiv talking directly with President Zelensky, and for the first time talking as if he believes the Ukrainians can win. I think that is the right signal to send to our allies. It is also right to send the signal that we want Russia to be permanently hobbled by this misadventure of unprovoked aggression, so that's good.

"What's bad is the president himself seems at times to constantly want to remind everybody what we won't do, and putting arbitrary limits on our assistance, I think, undermines our effort. But the real ugly is that we are running low in terms of our stockpiles. We just burned through seven years' worth of Javelins. And that's not only important as we continue to try and help the Ukrainians win in Ukraine — that's important as we try to simultaneously defend Taiwan from aggression from the Chinese Communist Party. They are going to need access to some of these same weapons systems, and we simply don't have the stockpiles at present in order to backfill what we've spent in Ukraine."

Comment: MIC on the job: $$$ Lockheed Martin bumps up war machine production:

Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet said on Sunday that his company would nearly double production of their Javelin missiles as the U.S. sends hundreds of the weapons to aid Ukraine's resistance against Russia's invasion. Taiclet, on CBS's Face the Nation, said:

"​​Right now, our capacity is 2,100 Javelin missiles per year. We're endeavoring to take that up to 4,000 per year, and that will take a number of months, maybe even a couple of years to get there because we have to get our supply chain to also crank up. We're starting now to ramp it up because we have an active production line right now that the president saw."

He referenced President Biden's recent trip to a Lockheed Martin facility in Troy, Ala.

"So we can start turning up the heat now and ramping the production immediately because of those circumstances. The war in Ukraine has highlighted a couple of really important things for us, including the need to have superior systems in large enough numbers to meet demand and control of the airspace."

The U.S. government has been looking to defense contractors to backfill the military's supply of weapons so the U.S. can continue to ensure Ukraine can defend itself against Moscow's forces.

Last week, the Pentagon moved $1.45 billion to the Army and Marine Corps to restock Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the U.S. sent to Ukraine.