The Biden administration's plan to arm Ukraine with cluster bombs shows the U.S. is struggling with a dangerously depleted ammunition supply, one military strategist warned.
Ret. Lt. Col. Darin Gaub joined "Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy" to discuss President Biden's decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine in his latest $800 million weapons package.
"Through my sources, I am being told that it's going to take us 10 to 15 years to recover from everything we've shipped over there," Gaub stated, adding the U.S. is "running perilously low on ammunition" and is behind in manufacturing 155 mm artillery shells and other systems.
"The reason why [Biden's] doing it is because this is what we have left to send them," he added.
US TO PROVIDE CLUSTER MUNITIONS TO UKRAINE, $800 MILLION MILITARY AID PACKAGE, OFFICIALS SAY
The president's move was met with criticism by both Democratic allies and foreign allies, including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles.
Gaub described the nature of these weapons, explaining, "Cluster bombs are basically a whole bunch of tiny bombs inside of a larger shell that, when launched over a specific area, or targeted to a specific area, that outer shell will explode outward, and all those little bomblets will spread all over a large piece of terrain and explode on contact."
There are currently more than 100 countries that have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the use of these weapons, including the United Kingdom, France and Germany. However, both the U.S. and Ukraine are not signees.
"With these kinds of bombs, there's always what's called a dud rate, something that just doesn't explode. Typically, in America, our rule is that we're not going to export anything without having that number be down to about a 1% dud rate, which currently with what we're shipping over, is a little over double that number because Biden waived it. And that's really the concern, that we're going to be helping spread these kinds of munitions all over Eastern Europe, which for years to come could cause injury and death," Gaub said. "It's a multiyear-long problem to clean that kind of thing up, which is why many people have issues with us sending them into Ukraine."
Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria over the weekend, "Ukraine continues to be brutally attacked across the board" by Russia's own cluster munitions and so Ukraine "needed them" to keep the Russians from stopping the Ukrainian offensive.
Host Trey Gowdy asked Gaub how "the most prosperous nation on Earth" ended up running behind on munitions.
"We're sending it over there faster than we can make it," Gaub said. "We have lines that are inactive and unfunded, and we're not even able to make these munitions and much of the equipment we need for the American military at the pace that we need to now for just us to maintain our own readiness."
Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
