Democrat 'Alarmed' Biden Will Send Ukraine Cluster Bombs

Democratic Representative Barbara Lee is expressing strong opposition to the Biden administration providing cluster bombs to Ukrainian military forces.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said during a press briefing Friday that the U.S. will provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a decision he cited as one not made lightly since the administration reportedly weighed their use in the Russia-Ukraine war dating back to December. President Joe Biden will be present alongside allies at next week's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Lithuania.

Cluster munitions are either dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground or sea. After being fired, the missiles, projectiles or rockets open in mid-air to release tens or hundreds of submunitions, according to the Cluster Munition Coalition, "which can saturate an area up to the size of several football fields" and injure or kill numerous military members or civilians in the vicinity of a strike.

"We recognize the cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance," Sullivan said, according to the Associated Press. "This is why we've deferred the decision for as long as we could. But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians, because Ukraine does not have enough artillery. That is intolerable to us."

The U.S. will send a version of the munition with a reduced "dud rate," he added.

"I am alarmed to hear @POTUS is considering sending cluster bombs to Ukraine," California Representative Barbara Lee, a candidate for Senate who while in Congress opposed the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, tweeted on Thursday. "Many people are unaware of these dangerous weapons."

Lee added: "The Ukrainian people are engaged in a just struggle for their rights, freedom and humanity. The U.S. and Ukraine don't need to stoop to Putin's level."

The U.S. has not used mass cluster munitions since 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and later on during a single attack in Yemen in December 2009. No cluster munitions of any kind have been exported since 2015, and they are no longer produced by American companies.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published new research on Thursday, saying that Ukrainian cluster munition rocket attacks on Russian-controlled areas in and around the city of Izium in eastern Ukraine in 2022 caused "many casualties among Ukrainian civilians."

The grand total is "most likely greater," HRW said, alluding to Russian forces taking harmed Ukrainian citizens to undisclosed situations for supposed medical treatment only for them to never return to their hometowns.

"Transferring these weapons would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians and undermine the international opprobrium of their use," the report says.

Mary Wareham, director of the arms division of HRW, told Newsweek via phone on Friday that the organization's reaction to the purported sending of these munitions is "disappointment and dismay."

She said she spoke with White House officials early on Friday.

"We heard a lot of rationale about weapons stocks running low and, you know, this is a war and we have to do what we can to support Ukraine," Wareham said. "We understand all of that. But transferring a prohibited weapon is not the way to go even if Ukraine, the U.S. and Russia have not banned cluster munitions."

In May 2008 in Dublin, 123 countries who are signatories or states' parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions signed a treaty banning the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of such weapons.

"This directly disrupts the international consensus around the eradication of cluster munitions, but it also ignores the civilian harm that is being caused by their use in Ukraine," Wareham, citing their use by both Russian and Ukrainian forces.

U.S. should 'lead global effort' to stop cluster munitions

Lee and 10 Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate sent a letter to the Biden administration last December, warning of "the devastating consequences of cluster munitions." It cited data collected by the Cluster Munition Monitor, which documented a minimum of 689 reported casualties due to cluster munition attacks in Ukraine in the first half of 2022.

"If the United States used cluster munitions today we would be criticized as we have condemned the Russians for using them in Ukraine," the letter reads. "We should be leading the global effort to rid the world of these weapons, not continuing to stockpile them."

The letter also requested the Biden administration to review the Department of Defense's (DoD) 2017 Policy on Cluster Munitions—a five-page document outlining the U.S. military's approach to using such weapons.

"Cluster munitions are legitimate weapons with clear military utility, as they provide distinct advantages against a range of threats in the operating environment," the DoD report states, adding that the U.S. "must not lose our qualitative and quantitative competitive advantage against potential adversaries."

Last month, the U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition sent a letter to the Biden administration expressing the utmost caution to implementing cluster munitions as part of the ongoing war in Ukraine. It was signed by over 30 members and partners, saying that U.S. use of the weapons "would run counter to the global consensus."

"Beyond making the United States a global outlier, acting in contradiction to partner nations' and NATO allies' express ban on the transfer and use of these weapons could hurt the U.S.' ability to forge and maintain coalitions that have been so crucial to supporting Ukraine," last month's letter read. "It would also harm efforts to promote other arms control agreements."

Wareham said it's unclear how the U.S. will transfer cluster munitions, if it is going that route, but warns that "they better not send them through any country that is a party to the international treaty" due to the obligations they have undertaken in signing that document.

"The transit of how the cluster munitions make it to Ukraine, and then what the allied forces who are part of the treaty do in terms of assisting with that use of munitions, will be watched very closely by my organization and by others to ensure that they do not themselves violate the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

"The impact of this, we'll be seeing in the coming weeks and months. There's a lot to unpack. But it's a far-reaching decision that has implications not just for cluster munitions but I think the assistance that the U.S. is providing."

Newsweek reached out to Lee and her Democratic Senate opponents, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter, as well as the Department of Defense and Cluster Munition Coalition, via email for comment.

Update 07/07/23, 3:39 p.m. ET: This story was updated with more information after Biden's announcement of sending cluster munitions to Ukraine.