Achi news desk-
The final shape of how American aid will finally begin flowing to Ukraine and Israel is taking shape this week after months of delay — and it may include additional oversight of just one of those countries.
The US House of Representatives will vote on Saturday on a series of bills that would authorize billions of dollars in new military, financial and humanitarian aid to support Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and the Indo-Pacific region, the latest of which includes money to help Taiwan defend itself against a possible Chinese military takeover.
The Senate will then have to approve its version of the legislation before US President Joe Biden can sign it into law.
The bills largely mirror, with some changes, a $95 billion foreign aid package passed by the Senate in February, which was split into separate bills in the House of Representatives. Both versions of the Ukrainian legislation would unlock $60 billion in aid, while also requiring the Biden administration to regularly update Congress on how this money is being spent, as well as provide a report on America’s long-term strategy to help Ukraine in its fight. against the invasion of Russia.
There are no such provisions for the $26.38 billion to be sent to Israel, a discrepancy that foreign policy and military experts agree is a political calculation based on longstanding precedent.
“The US has a long history of selling arms to Israel (so they can say) we have a level of trust with them that Ukraine does not have…”, said Richard Shimoka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute who focuses on security policy.
“There is a perception among some Republicans of Ukraine as a corrupt country, which was certainly true once when it was associated with the Soviet Union and remained a problem, but is fed and fueled by Russian disinformation as a reason not to send more aid.”
US aid to Ukraine, which has totaled $113.4 billion approved by Congress to date, has been under scrutiny since Russia invaded the country more than two years ago.
So far, however, the nearly two dozen inspector general offices and audit agencies that work to oversee that aid, and report regularly to Congress, have found no evidence of Ukrainian corruption of American funds. The Pentagon’s inspector general told a House committee as much in a hearing last year, noting there were open investigations into the allegations.
In his first report to Congress in February, the new inspector general appointed to oversee and coordinate these watchdogs revealed that fraud and corruption investigations had accused US service members and a Romanian employee of a US defense subcontractor of theft and attempted kickbacks, but no Ukrainian official had been involved.
The report also noted that according to the Pentagon agency responsible for providing military assistance to Ukraine, “there is no information to indicate that (Ukraine’s armed forces) used (the US-supplied weapons and equipment) in any way other than their intended purpose.”
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Despite these existing monitoring and reporting practices, the new aid bill to Ukraine asks the US Secretary of Defense to submit a report on “the measures being considered for United States defense articles intended for Ukraine,” including “measures to ensure that such articles achieve their goals. are received and used for their intended purposes.”
The bill requests that the report be submitted within 60 days after its entry into law.
In addition, the bill requests monthly reports detailing what weapons and equipment were sent to Ukraine, along with the funds used to pay for them.
“If you’re skeptical, you’d say they haven’t found (the corruption yet) and (the oversight agencies) aren’t doing a thorough enough job,” said Kurt Volker, who served as both the U.S. ambassador to NATO and the U.S. special representative to Ukraine and now He is a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“There’s no harm in adding an extra layer of vetting, and it helps everyone feel comfortable.”
The bill also states that both the Secretaries of State and the Secretary of Defense will submit a report to Congress within 45 days on the long-term strategy of US support for Ukraine.
The report must describe “specific and achievable goals,” define U.S. national security interests related to the war, and “indicators that will be used to measure progress toward achieving such goals,” the bill says, along with estimated price tags.
The Biden administration has not publicly identified what it hopes to achieve in Ukraine beyond ensuring that Russia does not win the war or gain territory. Republicans in particular have repeatedly called for such a plan to ensure the US does not end up in another “forever war.”
Both the Biden administration and the Ukrainian government will likely “swallow” the demand for more oversight and stated targets in exchange for assurances of rapid delivery of aid, said Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Institute and a former Canadian diplomat. us
“No one wants to be seen as responsible for the defeat of Ukraine, which is virtually assured without further American aid,” he said.
Should a similar test apply to Israel?
In the meantime, a debate intensified as to whether similar wording should apply to any American aid sent to Israel.
As it stands now, the language in the Ukraine aid bill on ensuring the proper use and delivery of military assets is not reflected in the separate aid package to Israel, which if passed would be the first approved by Congress since the October 7 Hamas attacks. .
Instead, it includes text requiring monitoring of the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in Gaza to ensure it is not directed to Hamas or “other terrorist and extremist entities in the West Bank and Gaza,” along with reports detailing prevention of such misuse.
The bill sets aside an additional $9 billion in humanitarian aid.
As a group of Democratic senators pointed out in a letter to Biden in December, Israel is one of the few countries in the world authorized to use foreign military financing, a procurement method that allows the direct purchase of American military equipment from American manufacturers. Uniquely, Israel is allowed to use these funds also in its local military industrial base.
Countries using foreign military financing are not required to publicly disclose their purchases and are not subject to traditional congressional oversight. Only a select group of senior lawmakers focused on national security and intelligence are able to see how the money is being used.
The Senate in January voted against legislation pushed by independent Senator Bernie Sanders that would have required the State Department to report to Congress on allegations of Israeli human rights violations in Gaza, or risk freezing American aid to Israel.
In February, Biden issued a memo requiring allies receiving US military aid to provide “credible and credible written assurances” that they are following international humanitarian law.
Although the order did not single out Israel, Biden has become increasingly vocal in public about his efforts to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. Biden warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers, that future US support would depend on Israel taking concrete steps to improve conditions in Gaza and protect innocent lives.
Reuters reported on Friday that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he had made “determinations” regarding allegations that Israel violated a set of US laws that prohibit providing military aid to individuals or units of the security forces who commit gross human rights abuses.
Leahy’s LawsAuthored by then-Senator Patrick Leahy in the late 1990s, it prohibits the provision of military aid to individuals or units of the security forces who commit gross violations of human rights and was not prosecuted.
When asked at a press conference in Italy about reports according to which the State Department recommended ending military aid to certain units of the Israeli security forces due to possible human rights violations in the West Bank, Blinken did not outright confirm the reports but promised results very soon.
“I’ve made decisions. You can expect to see them in the next few days,” Blinken said, declining to elaborate.
However, the Biden administration continued to approve arms sales to Israel, bypassing Congress to do so. Experts say there is a discrepancy between how the US readily supplies Israel – including direct military support – while Ukraine waits to receive it.
“We use US forces alongside British and French and Jordanian forces to help protect Israelis from rocket and missile and drone attacks, but we’re not doing the same for Ukraine,” Volker said. “So why is that?”
