The United States is walking a “fine line” when it comes to sharing intelligence with Ukraine without being seen as directly involved, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday.
Rep. Adam Smith indicated the U.S. will support Ukrainians “in every way” possible without “going to war with Russia,” echoing the Biden administration’s position of supporting the invaded country without deploying troops.
“When it comes to intel-sharing and targeting, that’s a fine line,” Smith said in a Thursday interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “We are providing some intelligence. We’re not providing the type of real time targeting that you see our military having gotten in conflicts like in Iraq.”
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Providing targeting information “steps over the line, making us participate in the war,” the Washington Democrat said, a position echoed by the White House, which maintains that Ukrainians should be the ones on the front lines.
“We’ve consistently shared a significant amount of detailed and timely intelligence on Russia’s plans and activities with the Ukrainian government to help Ukrainians defend themselves,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
But Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence Sen. Marco Rubio argued Wednesday on CNN that the U.S. should provide “actionable intelligence” and expressed concern that some intelligence “may not get there fast enough.”
“There are a couple factors to keep in place. No. 1, can it be communicated in a secure way. And to be actionable, it has to be accurate. A lot of times, people think intelligence is just as black or white. Oftentimes it is an assessment, a highly educated guess,” Rubio said, according to a transcript.
President Joe Biden has insisted the U.S. will not be sending troops to Ukraine’s front lines, instead providing millions of dollars in aid and supplying weapons, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles.
“Let me be clear: Our forces are not engaged and will not engage in the conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine. Our forces are not going to Europe to fight [in] Ukraine but to defend our NATO allies in the event that Putin decides to keep moving west,” Biden said Tuesday during his State of the Union address.
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Since the Russian invasion last week, more than 2,870 people in Ukraine have been killed, around 3,700 have been injured, and 572 have been captured, according to the Russian defense minister.
