Former President Donald Trump issued a statement on Tuesday, criticizing President Joe Biden for allegedly pushing the United States closer to a potential global conflict.
Trump claimed that Biden’s decision to supply cluster munitions, specifically M864 155-millimeter artillery shells, to Ukraine was a dangerous move that could escalate tensions. Initially, the Biden administration had displayed hesitancy in providing such weaponry.
The M864 shells, commonly known as Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM), are designed to disperse smaller explosive weapons over a designated area, targeting both personnel and vehicles.
“Joe Biden should not be dragging us further toward World War III by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine—he should be trying to END the war and stop the horrific death and destruction being caused by an incompetent administration,” Trump said in the statement that he posted on Truth Social.
“If, as Biden inadvertently admitted, the reason for sending cluster bombs now is that the United States is ‘running out of ammunition’ (a great breach of classified information), that only further emphasizes the urgency of immediately deescalating this bloody, dangerous, and out of control conflict,” Trump said. “It certainly means we should not be sending Ukraine our last stockpiles at a time when our own arsenals, according to Crooked Joe Biden, are so perilously diminished.”
Cluster munitions are controversial due to the risk posed by “dud” submunitions that could cause harm to civilians long after a conflict is over and were last manufactured in the 1990s, The Washington Post reported.
“There could be no more vivid proof that Joe Biden’s policy of endless war in Ukraine has tremendously weakened the United States than the humiliating admission that the USA is now out of ammo, something our enemies are undoubtedly salivating over,” Trump said. “This ‘admitted’ weakness is an invitation to enemies all over the world. Joe Biden is needlessly and dangerously leading us into World War III, which would be a nightmare beyond imagination—obliteration!”
In early February 2022, the Biden administration appeared to indicate it opposed usage of the weapons.
“It is — it would be. I don’t have any confirmation of that,” Psaki said in a Feb. 28, 2022 press briefing after a reporter asked about alleged use of cluster munitions by Russia in the early stages of the war in Ukraine. “We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime.”
