The Biden administration does not want a provision in the House version of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) establishing a special inspector general (IG) for Ukraine assistance. This reluctance of the White House to have transparency on its Ukraine “as long as it takes” assistance strategy raises the question of what is there to hide. The legislative language would establish an inspector general to provide oversight for all aid going to the Kyiv government to preclude fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
In its objection to the special IG for Ukraine aid, the White House statement argued the Pentagon Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office “are currently undertaking multiple investigations regarding every aspect of this assistance — from assessing the [department’s] processes for developing security assistance requirements to evaluating the end-use monitoring processes for delivered assistance.” However, the application of a process is not mentioned.
Special Inspector General for Ukraine
The House of Representatives recently passed its version of the NDAA, which authorizes a Ukraine special IG, that was voted out of the House Armed Services Committee by a 58-1 margin and cleared the House appropriations committee with a 34-24 vote. The full House voted on and passed the provision on July 14. The scope of the language Biden took issue with is found in Section 1222, page 686, of the NDAA, which reads:
“OFFICE OF SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL.—There is established the Office of the Special Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance to provide for the oversight of independent and objective conduct and supervision of audits and investigations relating to the programs and operations funded with amounts appropriated or otherwise made available to the Government of Ukraine to defeat the Russian invasion.”
The White House’s reluctance to have a dedicated watchdog to ensure that every American dollar and piece of warfighting equipment goes where it was intended is consistent with the positions of the IGs for the State Department, US Agency for International Development, and the Department of Defense. Speaking for the three agencies at a March House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Ms. Diana Shaw from the State Department explained there was no need for a Ukraine special IG.
Shaw believed the current arrangement with a Ukraine Oversight Interagency Working Group established a year ago was doing a good job. As Liberty Nation reported, “’ To add another layer into that would potentially result in a redundant mandate, duplicative costs, duplication of effort, is an IG concerned with efficiency,’ Shaw explained.” Also, all three of the agencies’ inspector generals were satisfied that warfighting materials and support had gone where it was intended in Ukraine and “no diversion of resources or military equipment could be substantiated.” Well, that’s the rub. That doesn’t appear to be true.
“As a result, the DOD (Department of Defense) did not have accountability controls sufficient enough to provide reasonable assurance that its inventory of defense items transferred to the GoU (Government of Ukraine) via the air hub in Jasionka (in Poland) was accurate or complete,” according to the Department of Defense Inspector General’s June 8, report. “DoD personnel did not have the required accountability of the thousands of defense items that they received and transferred at Jasionka,” the statement continued. This is a far cry from what the testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee tried to suggest.
Some Fear Aid to Ukraine Will Be Mismanaged Like Afghanistan
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“Some US officials have expressed concern that US weapons could end up in the wrong hands, raising concerns of a similar situation playing out in Ukraine that played out in Afghanistan in 2021 as the US military withdrew, leaving equipment behind,” Mike Brest explained, writing for the Washington Examiner. There remains a troubling question, however. Even if a special IG for Ukraine is established, will the State Department cooperate in providing accurate accounting data of military aid? The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in his cover letter to a 2022 report: “[F]or the first time in its history, [SIGAR] is unable this quarter to provide Congress and the American people with a full accounting of this US government spending due to the non-cooperation of several US government agencies,” Liberty Nation reported in its analysis of the Biden administration’s casual approach to the funding of the Taliban. In the body of the SIGAR report, the State Department was identified as one of the culprits.
The American taxpayer deserves an accurate accounting of the money being shoveled to Ukraine. No one benefits, least of all the Ukrainian fighters, when US military aid is not managed with system integrity. Whether the White House likes it or not, the special IG for Ukraine assistance is essential for adequate financial program and process controls.
