Biden Defends ‘Difficult’ Decision to Send Cluster Munitions to Ukraine

The Pentagon said on Friday that the administration’s decision would quickly provide hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions to Ukraine at a pivotal time when Ukraine’s monthlong offensive is flagging.

In order to approve the weapons for Ukraine, Mr. Biden had to waive a law that prohibits the transfer of such weapons that have a failure rate of more than 1 percent.

In a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon, Colin H. Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, said the munitions being sent to Ukraine had a low dud rate.

“These munitions are pretty close to 1 percent, but they’re not at the 1 percent level,” he said. “But the president does have the authority to waive that requirement on national security grounds, and that’s what he has done in this instance.”

Recognizing the moral and diplomatic sensitivities of sending Ukraine weapons that are banned by most of Washington’s allies, Mr. Kahl said the Russians were already indiscriminately using cluster munitions with failure rates of up to 40 percent on the battlefield, posing huge risks to civilians. Ukraine wants to use the same weapons to defend its own territory, and understands the risks of doing so, he said.

Mr. Kahl also said that the United States would work with Ukraine to minimize the risks associated with cluster munitions. Specifically, the Ukrainian government has said that it will not use the rounds in densely populated urban areas, and that using the rounds would make demining efforts easier after the conflict.

“There would be a careful accounting of where they use these weapons,” Mr. Kahl said.

Since World War II, cluster munitions have killed an estimated 56,500 to 86,500 civilians. They have also killed and wounded scores of American service members. Additional civilians, including children in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Balkans and Laos, continue to suffer from incidents involving remnants of cluster munitions.