Pentagon Spokesperson Explains Why Weapons Shipment To Ukraine Was Halted

At a Pentagon press briefing on Wednesday, Spokesperson Sean Parnell spoke about a weapons shipment to Ukraine that was halted.

Transcript

00:00Thanks for joining me today. I'll start off with a few things at the top and then I'll get to some

00:06of your questions here at the end. But let's start off with Ukraine because I'm sure that a lot of

00:12you all have a question a lot of questions about that. The Department of Defense continues to

00:17provide the president with robust options regarding military aid to Ukraine consistent

00:23with his goal of bringing this tragic war to an end. And at the same time, the department is

00:30rigorously examining and adapting its approach towards achieving this objective while also

00:37preserving U.S. military readiness and defense priorities that support the president's America

00:42First agenda. This capability review, and that's exactly what it is, it's a capability review,

00:49is being conducted to ensure U.S. military aid aligns with our defense priorities. And we will

00:57not be providing any updates to specific quantities or types of munitions being provided to Ukraine or

01:03the timelines associated with these transfers. But the secretary will continue to make recommendations

01:10to the president for his decision on military assistance to Ukraine going forward. We see this

01:15as a common sense, pragmatic step towards having a framework to evaluate what munitions are sent and

01:24where. But we want to be very clear about this last point. Let it be known that our military has

01:32everything that it needs to conduct any mission, anywhere, anytime, all around the world. We have the

01:40most lethal fighting force in the world. If you need further proof of that, look no further than

01:45Operation Midnight Hammer and the total obliteration of Iran's nuclear ambitions there. So switching to

01:52Iran and based on the success of the U.S. and Israeli military strikes, Iran is much further away

02:00today from a nuclear weapon than they were before the president took bold action to fulfill his promise

02:06to the American people. And that promise was Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And after the 12-day war

02:12between Iran and Israel, we have a ceasefire and we finally have peace. And the Department of Defense will

02:19support the diplomatic mission to continue that peace by ensuring that we maintain capability across

02:26the Middle East so that the president and the secretary of defense have a range of military options

02:32available to defend both our citizens, our troops, our forces in the region. And as such, we don't have any

02:39force posture updates at this time in the CENTCOM AOR.