Joe Biden Had it Right

On the war, Joe Biden had a far more progressive approach than his new running mate, Barack Obama.  We would do well to remember the words of Sen. Biden from just little over a year ago in an interview with the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press.  Pay special attention to his reasons for going to war, and for not pulling out suddenly.  He's dead on.  He totally exonerates Bush from any wrong doing in parts of this interview, and explains the president's reasons almost better than the president himself. 

It's quite clear from reading this that the Democrats changed their position on the war from support to opposition, for political reasons only.  Biden supported this war up until he began campaigning in Iowa in 2007.  As Tim Russert accurately points out, that's when he suddenly decided the whole thing had been a big mistake.  

He and most other Democrats rightly supported the war at the time, because it's what any rational, non-suicidal American would have supported.  And most Americans did support it.  They turned against the war when the war started going poorly because they realized it had become a political issue they could use against George Bush. 

MR. RUSSERT:  So you will not vote to cut off funding for the war, period.

SEN. BIDEN:  As of today, I would not vote to cut off all funding if the funding cutoff said there can be absolutely not a single solitary American force left anywhere within Iraq within a time certain.

MR. RUSSERT:  I want to go back to 2002, because it’s important as to what people were saying then and what the American people were hearing. 

Here’s Joe Biden on Saddam Hussein: 

• “He’s a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security.”
• “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat.  This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.”
• “He must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power.” You were emphatic about that.

SEN. BIDEN:  That’s right, and I was correct about that.  He must be, in fact—and remember the weapons we were talking about.  What I also said on your show at the time was that I did not think he had weaponized his material, but he did have [the material].  When the inspectors left after Saddam kicked them out, there was a cataloging at the United Nations saying he had X tons of X and they listed the

various materials he had.  The big issue, remember, on this show we talked about, was whether he had weaponized them. Remember you asked me about those flights that were taking place in southern Iraq, where—were they spraying anthrax?  And, you know, what would happen? And I pointed out to you that they had not developed that capacity at all.  But he did have these stockpiles everywhere.

MR. RUSSERT:  Where are they?

SEN. BIDEN:  Well, the point is, it turned out they didn’t, but everyone in the world thought he had them.  The weapons inspectors said he had them.  They cataloged them.  This was not some, some Cheney pipe dream.  This was, in fact, cataloged.  They looked at them and cataloged.  What he did with them, who knows?  The real mystery is, if he didn’t have any of them left, why didn’t he say so?  Well, a lot of people say if he had said that, he would’ve, emboldened Iran and so on and so forth.

[PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION HERE:  This is where Biden perfectly explains all the factors the president had to consider before going into Iraq.  After considering the same set of factors, Biden agreed with the president]:  But the point was, we were talking then about whether or not we could keep the pressure of the international community on Iraq to stay in the box we had them in.  And remember, you had the French and others say the reason all those children were dying in Iraq, the reason why hospitals didn’t have equipment is because of what we, the United States, were doing, imposing on Iraq these sanctions.  And that was the battle.  The battle was do we lift these sanctions or do we in fact increase the sanctions?  And everyone at the time was talking about—from the secretary of state to even the president—that this was to demonstrate to the world the president of the United States had the full faith and credit of the United States Congress behind him to put pressure on the rest of the world to say, “Hey, look, you lift the sanctions, we’re going to be on our own here.  Don’t lift the sanctions.  Get the inspectors back in.” That was the context of the debate, to be fair about it.

MR. RUSSERT:  But when you read the national intelligence estimate, which has now been released, they’re a lot of caveats put on the level of intelligence about the aluminum tubes and...

SEN. BIDEN:  Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT:  General Zinni, who’s been on this program a few weeks ago, said that when he heard the discussion about the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had, he said, “I’ve never heard that” in any of the briefings he had as head of the Central Command.  How could you as a U.S. senator be so wrong?

SEN. BIDEN:  I, I wasn’t wrong.  I was on your show when you asked me about aluminum tubes, and I said they’re for artillery.  I don’t believe they’re for cascading.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you said Saddam was a threat.  He had to be...

SEN. BIDEN:  He was a threat.

MR. RUSSERT:  In what way?

SEN. BIDEN:  The threat he presented was that, if Saddam was left unfettered, which I said during that period, for the next five years with sanctions lifted and billions of dollars into his coffers, then I believed he had the ability to acquire a tactical nuclear weapon—not by building it, [but] by purchasing it.  I also believed he was a threat in that he was—every single solitary U.N. resolution which he agreed to abide by, which was the equivalent of a peace agreement at the United Nations, after he got out of—after we kicked him out of Kuwait, he was violating.  Now, the rules of the road either mean something or they don’t.  The international community says “We’re going to enforce the sanctions we placed” or not.  And what was the international community doing? The international community was weakening.  They were pulling away.  They were saying, “Well, wait a minute.  Maybe he’s not so bad.  Maybe we should lift the no-fly zone.  Maybe we should lift the sanctions.” That was the context.

And on your show, you had that one Sunday the vice president of the United States saying he’s reconstituted his nuclear weapons.  I was on a simultaneous program, they asked me the question.  I said either the president—either the vice president’s not telling the truth or he did not get the same briefing I have or he fully misunderstands what he was told.  So I did not believe he had weaponized his materials.  But he did have material that, in fact, could theoretically be weaponized.  And to let it sit there at the time, I wanted the inspectors back in to force him that position of having to give it up.

MR. RUSSERT:  You were asked on this program a few months after the invasion of May of ‘03 about your vote.  And you said, “There was sufficient evidence to go into Iraq.” And then in ‘04 you said—a year and a half ago—“I voted to give the president the authority to use force in Iraq.  I still believe my vote was just.” Then you went to Iowa in ‘07, running for president and said, “It was a mistake.  I regret my vote.”

SEN. BIDEN:  That’s unfair.  I said that on your program it was a mistake between, and you make it sound like I went to Iowa and all of a sudden I had people out there saying Biden is...

MR. RUSSERT:  Well, there was a change in your thinking from, from being...

SEN. BIDEN:  No...

MR. RUSSERT:  ...a just vote to saying it was a mistake.

MSNBC April 29, 2007