A top House Republican said Sunday he agreed with the Biden administration’s contentious decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package, while a prominent progressive Democrat said the US risks “losing our moral leadership” over the move.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, and Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, made their remarks in separate interviews with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
McCaul said the weapons “would be a game-changer” in the war in Ukraine, noting that “Russia is dropping with impunity cluster bombs” on Ukrainian territory.
“All the Ukrainians and (President Volodymyr) Zelensky are asking for is to give them the same weapons the Russians have to use in their own country against Russians who are in their own country,” he said. “They do not want these to be used in Russia.”
McCaul: Cluster bombs will be ‘game changer’ in Ukraine
The munitions, also known as cluster bombs, spread shrapnel that is designed to kill troops or take out armored vehicles such as tanks, but they also scatter “bomblets” across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines.
Over 100 countries, including the UK, France and Germany, have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban – a point that McCaul emphasized on Sunday.
CNN previously reported that President Joe Biden mulled over the decision before approving the weapons transfer on Friday.
Biden
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