Judging Freedom - Ukraine Running Out of Ammo & U.S. Stockpiles Are Low w/Ray McGovern fmr CIA

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, July 11th, 2023. Ray McGovern joins us today for his regular weekly appearance. Ray, always a pleasure, my dear friend. You have been, for much of your career, a student of the Russian mind and the Russian mentality. Can you get your hands around and explain it to us, all this Pergosian stuff, all of this, what looked like a coup, which might have been a stunt, what could have been a temper tantrum, what supposedly was a banishment to Bielorussia now becomes, oh, welcome to the Kremlin, come to my office. Bring your 35 senior commanders. Pledge your loyalty to me. On with your work. Never mind the 20 Russian soldiers you killed on Russian soil.

Can you get a handle on this? No. Thanks for your honesty. Well, let me just say this. Phil Giraldi has a really good piece this morning on this, trying to put these things together. He talks about a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma, which this particular episode is. Suffice it to say that I think Putin is pretty strong here if he can call this guy a traitor in one breath and then welcome him back with his chief lieutenants in the next breath. What am I saying? I'm saying that Wagner is too precious a pearl to simply dissipate. So Putin's game, it seems to me, is to separate Wagner, this wonderful asset,

from Prigozhin. And I see them going after Prigozhin. You saw that raid on his office, okay? But Wagner, no, no, they want to keep those guys, okay? So that's how I see it right now. That's not much help. But in the coming days, we should see how it eventuates. My impression still is that rather than showing weakness on Putin's part, it shows a rather, you know, a strength that he can act this way and have no evident opposition to taking this rather meek line toward the celebrated Chef Prigozhin. Is there any Russian history of private warlords helping out the Tsar or helping out the head of the Soviet Union? Warlords whose chain of command was outside the ordinary legal defense ministry chain of command? Well, there were the Cossacks, of course, that were always very helpful to the Tsar. Whether they could be considered outside the military command, I don't think so. They were pretty much a kind of a side army that could be more effective and actually protect the Tsar in a way that the others could not. What's your take on the Biden administration offering to deliver cluster munitions to Ukraine? Is this because we ourselves have run out of artillery shells that they desperately need?

It's embarrassing, isn't it? I was on one of Russia TV's most popular shows, Solovyov Live, and they mentioned, you know, these munitions. And they said, well, so how do you explain this? I said, well, I don't have to explain it. The president said they run out of ammunition, the Ukrainians. And we're very low on these particular shells, the high explosive shells that go with the 155 millimeter cannon or tank, or artillery piece, actually, I should say. So he says, well, we looked around and we're low, too. The president's word, we're really low on these things.

So we saw on the shelf here a bunch of, these things fit. These are fine. So, let's provide these. Now, it's really a riddle that you can unravel as to why NATO and the United States is low and Ukraine is out of ammunition. I mean, there's a war going on, right? Hold that thought as to why we're low. Here's the president of the United States on CNN over the weekend saying, exactly as you just characterized it, Joe Biden on ammo. The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. The ammunition, they call them 155 millimeter weapons. This is a war relating to munitions and the running out of that ammunition, and we're

low on it. The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition and we're low on it. A, why tell the world we're low on ammunition? B, how ineffective and negligent is your management of the federal government that we are running low? C, are we really running low? Is the president's statement true and accurate? Ray? C, yes, we're running low. I forget what the B and A are, but let me just comment. The A is why tell the world and B is how negligent is your management that you would allow us to run low. Congress gives the Defense Department 850 billion with a, a year. And they're running low on artillery shells. And as far as I know, we're not firing artillery shells, maybe at Fort Sill in some sort of

training program. So all of our artillery shells are being wasted in Ukraine, a war that, according to the Jack Deshera-revealed documents, the government knows Ukraine's going to lose. Well, Jeff, let me just add something that Biden said, which I would challenge. We're in a situation, quote, where Ukraine continues to be brutally attacked across the board by these cluster munitions. Now, you've heard various views on whether the Russians are using cluster munitions. I think this may be another weapons of mass destruction little deception.

Back a year ago, the Department of Defense was asked, are the Russians using, here's some evidence, are the Russians using cluster munitions? And the DOD said, oh, we can't confirm that. The Department of Defense. Now, what has happened in the interim? I don't know. And the best experts that you and I choose to consort with say, we don't know right now, but it's not proven that what the president says here, namely that the Russians are using these things, is correct. I would guess it's incorrect for lots

of reasons that I could explain later. But let me get to the core. Let me get to number C. Why are we running short of this with all the billions that we spend? We spend those billions enriching the pockets of Raytheon and Lockheed and the rest of them on sophisticated things like F-35s that have real problems flying in rain and at night. You know, OK, so what's the the bigger picture? The bigger picture. I'm going to give you a little quote from our president in the early 2000s. Here it is. Today, the world's great powers find themselves on the same side in a war against terrorism. We are increasingly united by common values. Russia is in the midst of a hopeful transition. Chinese leaders are

discovering that economic freedom is the only source of national wealth. We welcome their pursuit of prosperity, trade, and cultural advancement. Guess which president? George Bush, for God's sake. I cite that only because people forget the Soviet Union fell apart, okay? It imploded, okay, in 1991, okay? There was no threat from Russia. Here is George Bush saying precisely that, welcoming them as pretty much cooperative people. So what happened? Well, NATO said, there's no threat from Russia. Let's, oh, maybe China? And the arms dealers said, oh, yeah, let's pivot to the east. We'll do China and then we'll still get rich, okay? But there was no threat. When did the threat come? When we overthrew the Ukrainian government, duly elected, Yanukovych was the president.

On February 22nd, 2014, the most blatant coup in history. That's when all of a sudden the Russians became a problem, okay? That's when they annexed Crimea. If people thought that they wouldn't annex Crimea with their naval port there, Sevastopol, they're crazy, have no idea what the Russians think of that strategic position. So long story short, the reason there's no appropriate ammunition, because there was seen as being no need for that, okay? And when you build 155-millimeter shells, well, you need a little bit of lead time,

and they can't even get that lead time compressed to the point where it would have an effect on what's going on now with the so-called counteroffensive. So our friend Jack Devine, who says that he thinks that Ukraine can win, is probably ignoring the fact that we and Ukraine have run out of artillery shells. And of course, he's not a military guy, but he must know you can't win a war without an artillery. Hillary. Judge Jack Devine and other former chiefs of station are con artists. That's their stock in trade. Hold your thought, because this will raise your blood pressure a little bit. Gary, play a clip from Jack Devine yesterday. Do you think that the Ukrainian forces can drive the Russians out of Ukraine? What I've said all along is just hold them and they will collapse. Just hold them. They don't have to drive them out. That's an American view. Drive them out. I'm saying you hold them and Putin will fall and you'll cut a new deal. I've been consistent

editorials discussion, driving them out. Will they be able to regain their territories? I believe that that's a possibility, not a probability, possibility. Will they be able to regain their territories? And before you comment, hold your thought. Gary, President Zelensky over the weekend on Crimea. Six months ago, you said you would not cede any territory to Russia to end this war. We're now 16 months in.

Is your answer the same? Yes. No territory. No Crimea. No territory. Crimea is our territory. All right. One's more deluded or misdirected.

Jack's my friend. I don't want to say deluded. Than the other. Well, Jack's a smart guy. It's just that you can't depend on operations officers to act like analysts. What's the difference between an operations officer and an analyst? Well, they're trained to con everybody, okay? Why do you see so many former chiefs of station on the boob tube? It's because they'll fall right in with what the

prevailing winds are. They're not trained. Some of them, in their honesty, say, well, I'm not really an analyst, but, okay. And Malcolm Nance is the paragon of this kind of thing. Let me go back to Jack, what he said. You hold them, well, you know, I don't know if you play poker, Judge, but there's a time, you have to know when to hold them and when to fold them, right? Right, of course. Kenny Rogers, right. Well, if you don't know when to fold them, or if your war machine just can't countenance fold in them, then you're in trouble deep. And it's all coming to a head, as you know, today and tomorrow in Vilnius, Lithuania, where there's a lot of disarray there. France is falling apart. Problems in Germany, where the AfD, the extreme right, is the second largest party in Germany, for God's sake. There's lots of problems there with economics

and everything else. So if people will finally realize when to fall them, sooner rather than later, I suspect it's going to be later. And it's when Russian forces defeat this counter offensive and start rolling west. And then I think there is an opportunity for Russia to say, all right, now you're going to fold them now? Look where we are. Can we deal now? Can we have a ceasefire now? But until that happens, I don't see any prospect that these, well, diluted applies to Biden and to Blinken, of course. They're not going to win this thing. I did tell them that two years ago. Just looking at the map, you can't win this one.

President Obama said you couldn't win this one. According to what you've written recently, deluded applies to the sorry state of our intel and military planning and analysis period. Deluded has led us to no artillery shells. Deluded has led us to an intelligence community that tells the president what they think he wants to hear. I'm afraid that's the case. You know, it used to be that I was reluctant to say abolish the CIA because there's a baby in that bathwater. Very briefly, that baby prevented a war against Iran during Bush and Cheney's last year in office. And I can prove it. I can prove it by

citing passages in George W. Bush's own memoir. So you don't want to throw the baby out. Whoops, where's the baby now? The baby is supporting the operatives. Throw the whole bunch of them out. Here's what the head of the CIA is saying in a big op-ed that the Washington Post, I think it must, well, it runs to seven pages printed out on my printer. Here it is. William Burns, quote, "'Putin's war has already been a strategic failure "'for Russia, its military weaknesses laid bare, period, end quote. What planet,

what planet is he coming from? What's he going to say next month when the counteroffensive, so avidly advertised for the last several months, falls. What is Avril Haines, his nominal boss, the National Intelligence Director, what's she going to say when just, let's see, I have a couple, yeah, here's what she said just a couple months ago. Ready? What will the counteroffensive look like? We are skeptical that the Russians will be able to handle it. In fact, they won't be prepared for it. I think very optimistically about the Ukrainians in that timeframe. Now, get this. She sees shortages of ammunition. And yeah, we see shortages of ammunition, direct quote. Oh, wow. Oh, wait a second. She's talking about Russia. They, the Russians, are quite quickly burning through

military stockpiles. I mean, it's pretty extraordinary in our own senses that they are not capable of indigenously producing what they're expending at this stage, their precision munitions are running out much faster. That's the head of national intelligence for whom Bill Burns works. You're right, Judge. They're telling Biden what he wants to hear, but it's 180 degrees away from the truth, and they're going to find that out in just about three or four weeks here's a slip of the tongue from uh matthew miller uh the state department spokesman yesterday so i

will say uh with respect to your first question we believe the war has been a strategic failure for ukraine uh the secretary spoke to this in a speech he gave in Helsinki last month, I believe it was. What's that? I'm sorry, excuse me, a strategic failure for Ukraine. Thank you for the correction. Oh, I need more than one correction today. He needs a new job or he needs to read the truth.

Judge, thanks for that. We all need a little comic relief here in these circumstances. I did slip. I mean, it is a strategic defeat for Ukraine. And, you know, the proof will be in the pudding. They're in Vilnius now, are the Europeans, the British, the Germans, the Spanish, the Austrians now, although they're not in NATO, all saying, we don't think these cluster ammunitions are moral or correctly, are they going to just say, well, okay, if Stoltenberg says it's up to each of us to make those decisions, how are we to quarrel with the wisdom coming out of Washington? Is that what they're going to do? Is that the supine attitude that they're going to keep? I'm afraid

it is. And that means more and more months of people getting killed in Ukraine unnecessarily. Last topic, you quote Secretary Austin as saying, one of the U.S.'s goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia. The U.S. is ready to move heaven and earth to help Ukraine win the war against Russia. Come on, this is not even realistically achievable, is it? No, absolutely not. The danger, of course, is if Biden, and you know, Biden's running for re-election, I hear. If he feels that he has to keep this thing going in a so-called stalemate of some kind, well, that's illusory as well. But that means that there's a greater danger of using what's left on the shelf.

When they run out of clustered munitions, oh, we got these mini nukes. Do they fit? Yeah, they fit. Are they 155? Yeah. Well, you know, let's threaten at least to use them. That would be a colossal mistake. But these guys make colossal mistakes all the time. And let's say I'm Vladimir Putin. I can't count on these people making sensible judgments, making sensible conclusions. Now, maybe, just maybe for the first time in 78 years,

the Europeans will grow up and say, man, this is getting out of hand. Joe, don't do this. Don't do this to us. Let's go to negotiations. Let's get a ceasefire before our economies and our political situation falls into complete disrepair. Ray McGovern, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thanks, George.

I'm off for a couple of weeks. As soon as I come back, I hope you'll be right back with us. Thanks. All the best. Thank you. Morris, we get it no matter where I am. If it happens, judge the politano for judging freedom. Thank you.