President Joe Biden faced backlash on Sunday after he revealed sensitive U.S. military information during an interview that critics said could make America’s adversaries more aggressive.
Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the reason that he is giving cluster munitions to Ukraine is because the U.S. is running out of 155mm artillery shells.
“These are weapons that 100 nations banned, including some of our closest NATO allies,” Zakaria said. “When there was news that the Russians might be using it admittedly against civilians your then press secretary said this might be constitute war crimes.”
“What made you change your mind and decide to give them these weapons?” he asked.
“The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition,” Biden responded. “The ammunition, that they used to call them 155-millimeter weapons. This is a war relating to munitions, and they are running out of that ammunition and we’re low on it. And so what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to, not permanently, but to allow for in this transition period where we have more 155 weapons, these shells for the Ukrainians, to provide them with something that has a very low dud rate. It’s about — I think it’s 150, which is the least likely to be blowing.
“And it’s not used in civilian areas. They’re trying to get through those trenches and stop those tanks from rolling. And so — but it was not an easy decision. And it’s not — we’re not signatories of that agreement. But I — it took me a while to be convinced to do it. But the main thing is they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now from their — keeping them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas, or they don’t. And I think they needed them.”
Biden’s remarks led to pushback online from commentators who said that he should not be revealing that type of information to the world during interviews.
“Joe Biden broadcasting to the world that the US is low on 155mm shells,” Republican strategist Steve Guest tweeted. “Moron. Does Biden not care that our adversaries in China are listening?”
“Just spectacular,” attorney and columnist Kurt Schlichter sarcastically remarked.
“Biden seems to be saying we’re sending cluster bombs to Ukraine because we’re running out of other munitions,” Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tweeted. “Looks like a pretext for even more military spending to me. The time has come to offer diplomatic alternatives to war + bring both sides to negotiating table.”
“Love when the president of America goes on CNN to tell everyone we’re low on ammo,” conservative strategist Logan Dobson tweeted.
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