Biden Defends Decision To Send Cluster Bombs To Ukraine

Last year, the White House said the use of cluster munitions was a ‘potential war crime’

President Biden on Friday defended his decision to arm Ukraine with cluster bombs, which are banned by over 100 nations because they are exceptionally harmful to civilians.

The Pentagon announced Friday that the US was sending cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of an $800 million weapons package. Kyiv will receive dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM), small bomblets packed into 155mm artillery shells designed to spread the munitions.

On February 28, 2022, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who now has her own TV show on MSNBC, told reporters that Russia’s use of cluster munitions in Ukraine would “potentially be a war crime.” But now, the Biden administration has changed its tune on the widely-banned munitions.

Speaking to CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria on Friday, President Biden said he needed to send cluster bombs because Ukraine and the US are running out of ammunition. “This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” he said. “And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to — not permanently — but to allow for this transition period, while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians.”