Questions from Republicans about the cost of supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia don't mean they don't want to help but are legitimate questions that deserve answers, retired U.S. Air Force brigadier Gen. Blaine Holt said on Newsmax on Wednesday, commenting as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was arriving at the White House for a meeting with President Joe Biden.
Further, Holt told Newsmax's "American Agenda" that one can't be entirely confident that members of Congress will approve the inclusion of $45 billion for Ukraine as part of a looming $1.7 trillion federal spending bill vote.
"You're never confident of that," said Holt, former U.S. deputy military representative to NATO and a Newsmax contributor. "Sometimes you get help that doesn't look so helpful. In this case, I think what a lot of the Republicans are really arguing for is they're not really saying so much that we're on the fence about supporting Ukraine. I think there's pretty much unanimous consent that that's important against the myriad of crises that we face in our own country."
Holt said the drive is for transparency and accountability about how the money is being spent.
Republican lawmakers are saying that "'we want to see what is the plan strategically with this money. Are you going to be bringing American high technology to the battlefield, and if so, what are the risks? We want to know are going to be advisers in the country with those Patriot batteries,'" said Holt. "These are legitimate questions, and they don't mean that you don't support the Ukrainian people."
Meanwhile, the war between Ukraine and Russia was "absolutely deterrable," but for the actions of the Biden administration, said Holt.
"Three months into this administration, the national security team was very well aware of massing Russian units on the Ukrainian border, and yet we went right into the failure that we call Kabul and Afghanistan," said Holt. "This transmitted all the weakness and was really all the green light that [Vladimir] Putin needed to go into Ukraine."
Even in the months between the withdrawal from Afghanistan until Feb. 24, when Putin's invasion started, the United States did not give Ukraine any military help, even though Putin was already violating the Minsk agreements, Holt said.
"It was a very dangerous cocktail, and we didn't do anything about it," he said. "And we needed to."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.