- POLITICO PRO - PAUL MCLEARY - MAR 21, 2023 -
Despite not using the weapons in years, and with a ban on their export in place, the Pentagon retains as many as 3 million cluster shells in its stockpiles.
Four top Senate and House Republicans are demanding that the Biden administration send cluster munitions to Ukraine, a weapon that Kyiv has long sought to blunt Russian numerical superiority on the battlefield, but the U.S. has refused to export.
The U.S. has denied requests to send the munitions to Ukraine since the start of the war a year ago, keeping with Washington’s aversion to firing the artillery-fired bomblets since American forces last used them during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
As the savage fighting around Bakhmut grinds on, and with Ukrainian forces outnumbered across the southern and eastern fronts, the lawmakers argue that it's time to give the Ukrainians the weapon, which the Russians have been using regularly since their invasion 13 months ago.
“We write to urge you to immediately provide cluster munitions, such as dual purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM), to the Ukrainian Armed forces,” Sens. Jim Risch and Roger Wicker, the top Republicans on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, along with Reps. Michael McCaul and Mike Rogers, chairs of the House’s Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, write in the letter viewed by POLITICO.