Republican rep says Biden admin is pulling 'accounting scam' to fund Ukraine

RT
Tue, 08 Aug 2023 20:16 UTC

© Susan Walsh/AP

US President Joe Biden

With funding for weapons shipments exhausted, the White House claims that it can keep arms shipments flowing thanks to an "accounting error"

US President Joe Biden is "pulling an accounting scam to send more money to Ukraine," Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed on Tuesday. One day earlier, US officials said that the next aid package for Kiev would be financed from a $6.2 billion windfall discovered months previously.

The Pentagon announced in May that its accountants had overvalued previous arms shipments to Kiev to the tune of $6.2 billion, and that this money could "go back into the pot" and be used to finance future weapons transfers from US stockpiles. Crucially for the Biden administration, this "error" was discovered before the last tranche of military and economic aid money authorized by Congress for Ukraine - worth $48 billion - ran out this month.

Essentially, the quantity of weapons sent to Ukraine remains unchanged, but by declaring them overvalued, the Pentagon claims that more can now be sent. Two US officials told Reuters on Monday that the first arms package financed by this error would be announced on Tuesday.

"We have NOT even finished funding our own military ... and the Biden admin is pulling an accounting scam to send more money to Ukraine!" Greene tweeted on Tuesday.

"Plus they want Congress to pass another Ukraine supplemental by combining it with emergency flooding money," she continued, referring to reports that the White House is working on a supplemental budget proposal to fund future weapons transfers, which it apparently plans to pass by combining with an upcoming disaster relief bill.

"This is WRONG and can NOT happen," Greene declared. "We should only be funding money to help Americans with disaster relief, not forced to vote to fund Ukraine at the same time! SEPARATE THE FUNDS because I'm NOT voting to send MORE money to a foreign war to kill MORE people!"

While Republican lawmakers have largely supported the Biden administration's policy of arming Ukraine "for as long as it takes," a group of hardline conservatives has repeatedly demanded that the US stop funneling money and weapons to Kiev.

This group of renegade Republicans - including Greene - held up the confirmation of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in January, relenting only when he granted them more prominent committee positions and the ability to start removal procedures if they are dissatisfied with his leadership.

As such, McCarthy will have to balance the interests of the GOP's pro-Ukraine majority with those of Greene and her fellow isolationists whenever the next funding bill comes before Congress.

Comment: Ukraine has become America's biggest foreign aid sinkhole since WW2:

The United States has committed in excess of $60 billion in aid to Ukraine since the beginning of Moscow's military operation last year, according to the Washington Post.

A recent analysis has shown that various US aid packages to Kiev have included $43 billion in direct military aid, making it the US' biggest investment in a country since World War II, according to the paper.

"These are off-the-charts numbers," Michael O'Hanlon of the think tank Brookings Institution told the WP.

He added that Washington's financial assistance to Ukraine could only be historically compared to the Marshall Plan - a US foreign aid package issued to Western Europe after the end of World War II. Adjusted for inflation, that initiative funded war recovery efforts to the tune of around $150 billion over three years.

The paper notes that Washington's aid to Ukraine vastly surpasses the financial support issued to some of the US' more traditional foreign partners, such as Israel, which was sent $8.6 billion in 2022 and 2023, and the $6.2 billion that was sent to Egypt and Jordan combined during the same period. It also significantly eclipses US financial support for Taiwan.

The US Department of Defense has an annual budget of $1.77 trillion, according to government data.

Some signs have shown that public support in the US for continued military assistance is weakening as the conflict enters its 18th month. Research in June found that 44% of Republicans or right-leaning independents believed that Joe Biden's administration was spending too much on Ukraine aid.

However, O'Hanlon pointed out that the US could continue to fund Ukraine indefinitely. "We could do it forever," he said. "It's not economically unsustainable. But it's probably politically unsustainable."

Easy, when you own the printing press.

Moscow has frequently cited Western support for Ukraine as a primary factor in prolonging the conflict. Anatoly Antonov, Russia's ambassador to the US, responded to a renewed military package from the US to Ukraine last month by saying it is "beyond morality and common sense." He claimed that while Washington seeks to portray itself as Kiev's "selfless benefactor," in practice it only strives for "more human suffering and deaths."

Russian officials have repeatedly warned that shipments of heavy weapons and other military aid to Ukraine make NATO members de facto direct participants in Moscow's conflict with Kiev. Moscow also insisted that Western support would not change the course of the outcome.