The US has decided to send cluster munitions to Ukraine to help its military push back Russian forces entrenched along the front lines – despite the ex-White House press secretary saying last year that Russia’s use of the bombs was a ‘war crime’.
The Biden administration has been weighing up a decision on sending the munitions since December, and is expected to announce on Friday it will send thousands of them as part of a new military aid package worth $800million.
Cluster munitions explode and disperse a series of smaller bombs over a wide area, often killing civilians. More than 120 nations have signed a 15-year-old treaty banning their use, but Ukraine and Russia have both deployed them – and Ukraine’s supplies of all types of ammunition are dwindling.
When, five days into the war, Jen Psaki, then the White House press secretary, was asked about the Russian use of cluster munitions, she said: ‘We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime.’
The White House has now shifted its position, and is overruling a law which bans the transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 percent. Some with a higher failure rate will be sent to Ukraine.
The decision was taken at a meeting of top national security officials last week, The New York Times reported.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was among the last holdouts against the idea, but he has reluctantly agreed the weapons are essential to help Ukraine win the war.
The White House had hoped that Ukraine’s summer offensive would be so successful they would no longer be needed.
But Volodymyr Zelensky has argued cluster munitions are the best way to kill Russians who are dug into trenches and blocking Ukraine’s counteroffensive to retake territory.
The decision is likely to face sharp criticism from U.S. allies, which are opposed to their use.
Cluster munitions are banned in almost all of Western Europe; every Central American country; and most of sub-Saharan Africa.
In the 1980s, the Russians made heavy use of cluster bombs during their 10-year invasion of Afghanistan. As a result of decades of war, the Afghan countryside remains one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
The United States has used cluster munitions in every major war since Korea, but no new ones are believed to have been produced for years.
The U.S. last used its cluster munitions in battle in Iraq in 2003, and decided not to continue using them as the conflict shifted to more urban environments with more dense civilian populations.
As many as 4.7 million cluster shells, rockets, missiles and bombs, containing more than 500 million submunitions, or bomblets, remain in military inventories, according to estimates by Human Rights Watch drawn from Defense Department reports.
Cluster munitions (pictured) are prohibited in more than 100 countries after they ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was adopted in Dublin, Ireland in May 2008
The United States will now have to carefully assess the ‘dud rate’ of the munitions they plan to send. Some of their existing cluster munitions have a dangerously high rate – meaning they do not explode, and so lie on the ground until someone, often a civilian, stumbles on them.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the standard one percent ‘dud rate’ level would be overruled, meaning that munitions with a higher likelihood of malfunctioning can be sent to Ukraine, given the demand and urgency.
Critics said the decision would cost lives.
‘It’s dismaying to see the long-established 1 percent unexploded ordnance standard for cluster munitions rolled back as this will result in more duds, which means an even greater threat to civilians, including de-miners,’ said Mary Wareham, advocacy director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch.
‘The lack of transparency on how this number was reached is disappointing and seems unprecedented.’
Proponents argue that Russia has already been using the controversial weapon in Ukraine and that the munitions the U.S. will provide have a reduced dud rate, meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended civilian deaths.
The munitions are launched by the same artillery weapons that the U.S. and allies have already provided to Ukraine for the war – such as howitzers – and the type of cluster munition that the U.S. is planning to send is based on a common 155 mm shell that is already widely in use across the battlefield.
The cluster bomb is an attractive option because it would help Ukraine destroy more targets with fewer rounds, and since the U.S. has not used them in conflict since Iraq, it has large amounts of them in storage it can access quickly, said Ryan Brobst, a research analyst for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
A March 2023 letter from top House and Senate Republicans to the Biden administration urged the White House to send the munitions to alleviate pressure on U.S. war supplies.
‘Cluster munitions are more effective than unitary artillery shells because they inflict damage over a wider area,’ Brobst said.
‘This is important for Ukraine as they try to clear heavily fortified Russian positions.
Use of cluster bombs itself does not violate international law, but using them against civilians can be a violation.
As in any strike, determining a war crime requires looking at whether the target was legitimate and if precautions were taken to avoid civilian casualties.
‘The part of international law where this starts playing (a role), though, is indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians,’ Human Rights Watch’s associate arms director Mark Hiznay told The Associated Press.
‘So that’s not necessarily related to the weapons, but the way the weapons are used
Russian forces have used cluster bombs in Ukraine on a number of occasions, according to Ukrainian government leaders, observers and humanitarian groups.
And human rights groups have said Ukraine has also used them.
During the early days of the war, there were repeated instances of Russian cluster bombs cited by groups such as Human Rights Watch, including when they hit near a preschool in the northeastern city of Okhtyrka.
The open-source intelligence group Bellingcat said its researchers found cluster munitions in that strike as well as multiple cluster attacks in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, also in the northeast.
More recently, in March, a Russian missile and drone barrage hit a number of urban areas, including a sustained bombardment in Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region.
Just west of there, shelling and missile strikes hit the Ukrainian-held city of Kostiantynivka and AP journalists in the city saw at least four injured people taken to a local hospital.
Police said Russian forces attacked the town with S-300 missiles and cluster munitions.
Just a month later, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko accused Russian forces of attacking a town with cluster munitions, wounding one person.
Anyone profiting from the current stock market boom, I hope you know what you’re profiting off of. Guess you like seeing humans blown to bits, or maybe you’re just one who looks away.
Cluster bombs!! The “Greater Israel” project is rooted in sadism.
Evil seeks out senselessness and cruelty to carry out its mission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1A1XoM5ZE
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States:
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1677407162086174720
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Bitcon or trusting your money to these evil corrupt Bankers .. Your either greedy or your not capable of clear thought. THESE MTHFCKRS ARE CROOKS! They can take the monies out of any investment you have!! Bury your money in a coffee can. I like pure silver in my safe…. Tho it always hammered down by the crooks, they only sell paper…. pump and dump.
In case anyone is looking for a weekend movie…
“Testament of Youth, 2014”
Didn’t post trailer because it makes it makes it look like just a romantic movie, but it’s so much more. Based on a true memoir of a WW1 nurse. Intense, and at the same time beautiful. Looks war in the face.
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Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6IhLcnyuN0
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The first time I heard that song played, it was by Mark Knopfler at the Sydney Opera House. Hearing the original version for the first time here, I get the full story. So sad. Here is a song Mark wrote called, “Done with Bonaparte.” I think you might enjoy all the instrumentation, especially the Irish pipes. 🙂 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T-N0u6xTs1g