Military intelligence 'never perfect': Kirby
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby defends the U.S. intelligence community's record preceding the Russia-Ukraine war on 'Your World.'
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby claimed the Biden administration sent "lethal assistance" to Ukraine before the war started Tuesday on "Your World."
JOHN KIRBY: I've been around military intelligence for my entire adult life. And I can tell you it's never perfect. It's a mosaic. And you do the best you can with the information you can collect, put it together, try to analyze it. Sometimes you're closer to the mark than others. With respect to Ukraine, the United States was literally leading the world in making clear what we saw Russia do since the fall in terms of amassing forces and their intentions to go into Ukraine. And we said it loud and clear from the podium here at the Pentagon and from all over town, as well as international capitals around the world and particularly in Europe. And not everybody believed us at the time, but we were very right about what Russia was about to do. And we also worked hard in the lead-up to that invasion.
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One, the Biden administration was flowing in weapons well before the invasion. The first billion dollars that the president committed to Ukraine did include lethal assistance. And that was before Putin decided to move in. Plus, we were very open and honest about what we were seeing the Russians do. And then the last point, which I don't think we keep in mind as much as we should, Neil, is the training and effort that went into getting the Ukrainians ready for this kind of war over the last eight years. The United States, Canada, Britain, other allies really helped train the Ukrainians in small unit leadership, command and control, operational maneuver.
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