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President Joe Biden defended his decision on Friday to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, which are banned by many of America’s closest allies, saying it was a difficult decision but that “the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition” in the meantime. Fighting Russian forces.
For months, Biden has been grappling with the decision to supply the weapons, which scatter deadly little bombs across the battlefield. They have been known to cause serious injuries months or even years after fighting ends, often among children who pick up duds that failed to explode when initially dropped.
In the end, the president decided that to deny Ukraine weapons would be tantamount to leaving it defenseless against Russia. He said it was a temporary step to take over Ukraine so that production of conventional artillery shells could be increased.
Biden said in an interview with CNN. “The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Ministry of Defense — not permanently — but to allow for this transitional period,” he added.
The decision marked a break with many of America’s closest allies and led to criticism from Democrats, who have expressed concerns that the weapons risk the moral standing of the United States. The move could also complicate efforts to show unity when Biden attends a NATO summit next week in Lithuania.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg sidestepped the question of whether he thought it wise for the United States to supply weapons to Ukraine. “It is up to individual allies to make decisions about the delivery of weapons and military supplies to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “So this is something for governments to decide – not for NATO as an alliance.”
US officials note that Russia has been using its cluster munitions in Ukraine for most of the war. The Ukrainians used it too, and President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pressuring Biden to supply him with more in order to flush out the Russians who have dug in the trenches and block Ukraine’s counterattack.
Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters at the White House on Friday that Ukraine made a direct appeal for the weapons several weeks ago. “Ukraine will not use these munitions on some foreign territory,” Sullivan said. “This is their country that they are defending. These are their citizens who are protecting them, and they are motivated to use whatever weapon system they have in a way that minimizes the risk to those citizens.”
Sullivan said the Ukrainians promised to use the weapons in a way that spared civilians, but he said there were no guarantees. “The battlefield is changing all the time,” he said.
Several US allies who support Ukraine have drawn a line in providing cluster munitions. Germany and France are among more than 100 countries that have signed an arms embargo treaty; The United States, Russia and Ukraine have not.
The United States never joined the agreement because officials believed cluster munitions could be useful on the battlefield. The United States used cluster munitions during the war in Iraq, according to the Cluster Munition Coalition, a campaign calling to end the use of the weapons. Saudi Arabia used US-made cluster munitions during the war in Yemen until the US stopped transferring them amid fears that civilians would be harmed.
US allies reacted cautiously on Friday to Biden’s decision. While Germany and France did not criticize the United States or oppose the move, the two countries said they would not follow suit.
The Pentagon said on Friday that the administration’s decision would quickly provide hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions to Ukraine at a pivotal time when Ukraine’s month-long offensive winds down.
In order to approve the weapons for Ukraine, Biden would have had to waive a law banning the transfer of such weapons with a failure rate greater than 1%.
In a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon, Colin Kahl, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, said the munitions being sent to Ukraine had a low rate of detonation.
“These munitions are very close to 1%,” he said, “but not at the 1% level.” “But the president has the authority to waive that requirement on national security grounds, which he did in this case.”
Aware of the moral and diplomatic sensitivities of sending weapons to Ukraine that are banned by most of Washington’s allies, Kahl said the Russians are already indiscriminately using cluster munitions with failure rates of up to 40% on the battlefield, posing significant risks to civilians. He said Ukraine wanted to use the same weapons to defend its territory and understood the risks of doing so.
Kahl also said that the United States will work with Ukraine to reduce the risks associated with cluster munitions. Specifically, the Ukrainian government has said that it will not use the rounds in densely populated urban areas and that using these rounds will make post-conflict demining efforts easier. “There will be an accurate account of where they used these weapons,” Cale said.
Since World War II, cluster munitions have killed an estimated 56,500 to 86,500 civilians. They also killed and wounded dozens of American soldiers. Other civilians, including children in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Balkans and Laos, continue to suffer cluster munition remnants-related incidents.
On Friday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said the decision “will greatly help us end the occupation of our lands while saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.” On Capitol Hill, many Democrats criticized the decision, arguing that the weapons can cause indiscriminate harm to civilians long after fighting has ended.
“I continue to strongly support Ukraine’s assistance in confronting Russia’s brutal war of aggression,” Rep. Jim McGovern, the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement. But cluster munitions will not help.
But the few Republicans who spoke about Biden’s decision on Friday praised him for taking what they said was a necessary step.
“For Ukrainian forces to defeat Putin’s invasion, Ukraine needs at least access to weapons that Russia is already using against it, such as cluster munitions,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in a statement. “Introducing this new capability is the right decision – even if it takes a long time – and one that I have supported for a long time.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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