Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, says the Biden administration’s leadership has been “weak” in handling the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
During an appearance on Mobile, AL radio FM Talk 106.5 on Friday, the Alabama Republican lawmaker criticized Biden overall but acknowledged military assistance from the United States was arriving where it was needed.
“We just have weak leadership from the president,” he said. “We’re the only superpower in the world. We’re supposed to be leading. You’re not going to get it from most of the NATO countries when it is not coming from the United States. And that’s regrettable.”
“But, having said that — you know the package we just passed offers a lot of assistance, economic and military assistance that we’re hoping we start seeing in a more effective manner,” Rogers continued. “I had the Transportation commander, the TRANSCOM commander in my office yesterday, a four-star general. So far, we’re having a pretty good effect on getting supplies in Ukraine from various ingress and egress points. And we’re doing a pretty good job of getting to places it needs to go.”
Rogers urged the Biden administration to do more, including getting weapon systems to NATO allies to backfill those armaments they had loaned Ukraine.
Included among Rogers’ wishlist was the S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems for Slovakia so that Slovakia could lend its existing S-300 systems to Ukraine.
“The thing we haven’t done a very good job at, and this came up in our hearing — where I was challenging the administration and the EUCOM commander about why we haven’t been able to get the anti-air systems that they need. In particular, there’s a system called S-300, which is very effective, and Slovakia has one and is ready to give it to them immediately as long as we give them something to backfill it.”
“They don’t want to leave themselves with a defense system,” Rogers added. “It’s a no-brainer, but it’s been over two weeks, and the Defense Department has not backfilled that capability for Slovakia so we can get the S-300 to them. And it would be much more effective than any MiGs — you know, there’s been a lot of discussion about getting MiGs from Poland to them. This S-300 is much more effective.”
“I’m just very disappointed in our Defense Department and our administration that has not been very effective in backfilling that,” he added. “Hopefully, they will. We just gave the administration a whole bunch of money to start providing lethal aid, and I’m hopeful they’re going to use that to get some PATRIOT batteries to that region, and hopefully, that will free up some stuff from some NATO allies that are not afraid to give to Ukraine.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.