House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Sunday said he sees no wrong in President Biden’s controversial decision to equip Ukraine with cluster munitions as Kyiv mounts its counteroffensive against Russia.
“They want these as self-defense to use against Russians in their own country of Ukraine. I don’t see anything wrong with that because, quite honestly, … as you look at the counteroffensive, it’s been slowed tremendously because this administration has been so slow to get the weapons in. These weapons would be a game changer,” McCaul said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The administration on Friday announced plans to provide Ukraine with the long-requested weapons. Cluster munition are designed to spread out multiple submunitions over a wide area, and are banned by more than 100 countries due to the risks the explosives pose to civilians.
Biden has defended the decision, saying the Ukrainians “needed them.”
“I’m really pleased the administration has finally agreed to do this,” said McCaul who has been critical of the pace of aid sent to Ukraine by the Biden administration.
McCaul noted that neither the U.S. nor Ukraine are a signatory to the Geneva Convention on cluster munitions, and that Russia is dropping cluster bombs in Ukraine “with impunity.”
“All the Ukrainians and 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. They do not want these to be used in Russia,” McCaul said.