Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told a Senate panel Tuesday that he won’t let the US deplete its stockpiles of munitions that are being shipped to Ukraine.
“It’s very critical to ensure that we maintain what we consider to be our minimum required stockage levels, and you can rest assured that I will not allow us to go below that in critical munitions,” Austin told a Senate defense appropriations hearing.
When President Biden asked Congress for a massive new $33 billion aid package for Ukraine, it included $550 million to establish a Critical Munitions Acquisition Fund. Austin said the fund would let the Pentagon create a “strategic reserve” for the munitions it is sending to Ukraine, which includes Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and heavy artillery rounds for howitzers.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, it’s estimated that the US has sent Ukraine about a third of its Javelin stockpile and a quarter of its Stingers. Raytheon, the manufacturer of Stingers and former employer of Austin, has warned it cannot produce the anti-aircraft missiles for a few years due to material shortages.
Raytheon’s warning prompted senators to call on President Biden to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that gives arms makers access to critical materials ahead of other domestic manufacturers.
Highlighting the US focus on arming Ukraine, President Biden visited a Lockheed Martin facility in Alabama on Tuesday that produces Javelins. The US policy of pouring weapons into Ukraine is a boon for US arms makers like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and they are expected to see long-term benefits from the war.
The long Term benefits from war?… A boon?….Well, if we keep this malarkey going we might find ourselves in a larger conflict, perhaps with Russia?… An even bigger “boon”?! Is there any kind of diplomacy going on, anywhere, in an effort to reduce tensions and conflicts or is the US/West only interested in benefitting and booning/ for the military industrial complex?… Say it ain’t so Joe…
imagine New 5 star Mediterranean resorts where Gaza is now?
Add dreamy subways to JRS to make temple trips, for 1,000 years.
That’s that insanity our merchants have dreamed up.
Edomites are trade pirates, they weaseled Solomon’s wealth away with 700 Pagan temple Trollopes.
The USA has posession and dominion of the Temple mount as a divine right to claim, by fiat. No more DC, USA, UN, NYC, etc. By design of their assigned wrath, the snakeoil for Dominion.
Russia BTW has no such snakeoil.
Our Dominionists intend to build JRS from the ground up.
Build it back Better.
From the ashes of this Whirld!
yepper!
The plan is that the $30B funding will come from seizing and selling Russian property. So much for the ‘rules based world order’. We confiscate things based on where someone was born and when it is convenient.
Putin is not Saddam Hussein or Murmur Qaddafi. Nor Slobodan Milosevic .All of them were killed by world policemen and their wealth looted.Nor he is Jovenel Moise to be killed , his eyes gorged out by international banksters.Expect Mushroom Clouds over the U S of A if it come to that stage rather than Putin allowing the bandits of West to loot his nation
Can I go to the Utility and strip copper from their grounding systems to pay for my electric bill with the same model of dominionist ecconomic piracy?
Lloyd J Austin the Turd will say anything with or without his knowledge of what he is talking about.
This guy is truly a Turd in the punch bowl of the American military.
It’s all about the money and MIC corporate welfare.
Nazi polarized fanatics in Europe have BLACKMARKET USA Stingers for sale.
What could go wrong?