The Pentagon said this week that it had underestimated the value of the military hardware it had removed from its stockpile and sent to Ukraine which means that as a result, it now has an additional $6.2 billion worth of hardware to transfer.
During a news briefing, Deputy Pentagon news Secretary Sabrina Singh said that during “regular oversight” of its power to transfer American military hardware to Ukraine, “we found discrepancies in equipment values for Ukraine.”
She claimed that in a “significant amount of cases,” the U.S. military services had overestimated the worth of the equipment sent to Ukraine by using replacement prices rather than the item’s net book value.
“In order to guarantee that we apply the most correct accounting techniques,” Singh added, “as soon as we found this misvaluation, the Comptroller reissued guidelines on March 31st explaining how to value equipment in accordance with the financial management regulations and DOD policy.”
According to her, the DOD overstated the amount by $3.6 billion within the fiscal year 2023 as well as $2.6 billion during the fiscal year 2022, totaling $6.2 billion.
The Pentagon “maintains the legal right to utilize” the “recaptured” authorization to send that quantity of equipment, according to Singh, who also claimed that the error did not affect any previous deliveries to Ukraine.
Both the left and the right expressed fury upon hearing that the Pentagon will provide an additional $6.2 billion to Ukraine.
Former Ohio state senator Nina Turner said on Twitter, “A $6.2 BILLION DOLLAR ACCOUNTING ERROR?!”
“This is absurd,” tweeted Joe Kent, a Republican running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington. “We cannot permit the DOD to function in this manner. Show Congress and the American people precisely where our money is going by demanding that the DOD account for every dollar.”
He said, “Secure our border with the spare $3 billion the DOD bean counters have just ‘discovered.'”
Prior to the accounting miscalculation, the Department of Defense estimated that from the start of the Biden administration, it had sent over $40.7 billion in security aid to Ukraine, including a total of over $40 billion since Russia invaded the country on February 24, 2022.
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