Rep. Barbara Lee asked President Biden to reconsider his decision to send highly lethal cluster munitions to Ukraine as it carries out its counteroffensive against Russia.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) on Sunday asked President Biden to reconsider his decision to send highly lethal – and controversial – cluster munitions to Ukraine as it carries out its counteroffensive against Russia.
“Cluster bombs should never be used – that’s crossing the line,” Lee told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Once you see what takes place – we know what takes place – in terms of cluster bombs being very dangerous to civilians.”
Banned by nearly 125 countries for their propensity to cause indiscriminate death and destruction to non-military targets, cluster bombs release dozens of smaller explosive submunitions that spread mid-air to hit multiple targets, similar to how multiple pellets spread from a single shotgun shell.
The danger, officials say, lies especially in the submunitions, which don’t always explode immediately and can cause damage long after they are deployed if found accidentally by an unsuspecting person.
“They don’t always immediately explode. Children can step on them,” Lee stressed on “State of the Union.”
“That’s the line we should not cross.”
The White House announced it would be sending Ukraine the weapons on Friday after criticizing Russia’s use of them just last year, stating it could constitute a “war crime” if the munitions are used against civilian targets.
The weapons are so fearsome that US law required Biden to get special permission to provide them to Kyiv since Congress in 2010 enacted severe restrictions on transferring cluster munitions to foreign nations.
