The White House is defending its decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says Ukraine's plan to use of the weapons are far different that how Russia has been using them in the war
At a press event last Friday, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milleythat the decision-making process to send the bombs to Ukraine was “ongoing.” Milley also noted that Russian troops were already using them on the battlefield and that Ukrainian forces have already received them from other Western allies.
Some U.S. lawmakers have called on the Biden Administration to not send the weapons. Last week, for example, 14 senatorsa letter to the U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan saying that while they recognize the munitions could provide Ukraine an advantage on the battlefield, they were “convinced that the humanitarian costs and damage to coalition unity of providing U.S. cluster munitions would outweigh the tactical benefits.
Remains of a cluster munition rocket nailed in a field near a dirt track in the frontline of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on April 19, 2022.The decision to send them will bypass a U.S. law that prohibits the production, use, or export of cluster bombs with a failure rate higher than 1%. The last publicly available estimates—more than 20 years ago—of dud rates for the weapons have them at 6%.
In 2008, more than 100 nations signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty that came into force in 2010 and prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of the deadly weapons. Only 16 countries—including the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia—have so far refused to sign the convention, according to Cluster Munition Monitor 2022.More Must-Reads From TIME
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