US Running Low On Weapons as It Arms Ukraine – Congressman

By Staff, Agencies

US Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, said the US’ rush to arm Ukraine has “burned through” years-worth of weapons stockpiles, hampering Washington’s ability to simultaneously arm Taiwan against potential conflict with China.

Meanwhile, the US’ vast military industry is lobbying the White House for more contracts.

“We are running low in terms of our stockpiles,” Gallagher, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News on Friday.

“We just burned through seven years of Javelins.”

“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,” he continued.

The US administration of Joe Biden has thus far given Kiev almost $4 billion in military aid, and he is currently pressing Congress to pass his $33 billion Ukraine aid package, $20 billion of which would fund weapons and other military support for Kiev.

Additionally, Biden is expected to sign the Lend-Lease Act of 2022 on Monday, reviving a piece of World War II-era legislation to allow the US to export unlimited quantities of weapons to Ukraine.

The Javelins referenced by Gallagher are shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles, and the US has already sent more than 5,000 of these to Ukraine. While the Pentagon does not publish exactly how many of which weapons it has in stock, an analyst at the weapons industry-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies told PBS last month that this represents about a third of the US’ stockpile.

Amid the Biden administration’s unprecedented effort to arm Ukraine, it remains unclear how many American weapons shipments actually end up in Ukrainian hands. Russia has declared supply convoys “legitimate targets” and has destroyed several warehouses of western weapons. However, a US intelligence source recently told CNN that Washington has “almost zero” idea where its weapons end up, describing the shipments as dropping “into a big black hole.”