ELLEN MITCHELL
The Pentagon’s watchdog arm has announced it will look into the extent to which the Defense Department shares intelligence with European partners in support of Ukraine in its war with Russia.
The goal of the evaluation is to determine the degree to which the U.S. military “developed, planned, and executed cross-domain intelligence sharing” with its European partners, according to a Monday memo from the Defense Department’s inspector general.
The Biden administration has been open about sharing battlefield intelligence with the Ukrainians in its now four-month war with Russia, but U.S. officials have stressed that Kyiv is responsible for deciding what it targets and when.
To share such information, the White House in early March modified existing guidance for the Pentagon and U.S. spy agencies on sending data to the Ukrainian government, pushing aside bureaucratic roadblocks to intelligence sharing, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Pentagon: Ukraines using rocket system to hit Russian command postsDefense & National Security — More rocket systems for Ukraine
The watchdog will now look at such U.S. efforts, particularly at U.S. European Command (Eucom) headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, at Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., the Eucom Joint Analysis Center and other locations, as it begins its investigation this month.
The Office of the Inspector General also scrutinizing the Pentagon’s plans to resupply its stockpiles of weapons and equipment — an evaluation announced last week as the U.S. military continues to transfer lethal aid to Ukraine.
In a separate undertaking, the watchdog is also looking at how the Defense Department tracks the use of funds to support Kyiv’s fight.
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