Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told the "Brian Kilmeade Show" Monday that President Biden has been indecisive and should have provided Ukraine with more significant weapons much earlier. The senator and Army veteran defended the move to send cluster bombs to Ukraine, arguing that Russia is using the same type of bombs to take control of territory.
US TO PROVIDE CLUSTER MUNITIONS TO UKRAINE, $800 MILLION MILITARY AID PACKAGE, OFFICIALS SAY
SEN. TOM COTTON: I've been calling for this for months and months. This is yet another example of Biden's indecision and how it set Ukraine back. The President has been pussyfooting around now for almost a year and a half, refusing to provide Ukraine certain weapons that they need to defend their own territory, only to reverse himself months later when they're in a situation where they have to retake their territory. We have. Millions and millions of these artillery shells sitting on our shelves. We're almost certainly never going to use them ourselves. They are suitable for the exact kind of artillery systems we've already provided to Ukraine. There is an international treaty that many countries have signed against using them, but we have not signed it and Russia has not signed it and China has not signed it. And if I could just put a very fine point on it. Russia is using cluster munitions in Ukraine, and Ukraine has pleaded with us for months to let Ukraine use cluster munitions in Ukraine. So why the hell would we care if Ukraine uses cluster munitions in Ukraine if it helps them retake their territory and end this war? We should have done it months ago.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Sunday defended Biden's controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.
"This is about keeping Ukraine in the fight. You were just there. You talked to President Zelenskyy about the counteroffensive, and in some ways, it’s not going as fast as he would like," Kirby told host Martha Raddatz during an appearance on ABC's "This Week."
"They are using artillery at a very accelerating rate, Martha, many thousands of rounds per day. This is literally a gunfight in – all along, from the Donbas, all the way down toward Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. And so, they’re running out of inventory."
"We are trying to ramp up our production of the kind of artillery shells that they’re using most. But that production is still not where we wanted it to be," Kirby added. "So, we’re going to see these additional artillery shells that have cluster bomblets in them to help bridge the gap as we ramp up production of normal 155 artillery shells."
The munitions – which detonate in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets – are seen by the U.S. as a way to get Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its offensive and push through Russian front lines. U.S. leaders debated the thorny issue for months, before Biden made the final decision last week.
The decision comes on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania, where Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the U.S. would send a weapon into Ukraine that more than two-thirds of alliance members have banned because it has a track record for causing many civilian casualties.
