Joe Biden, U.S. Senator for Delaware

January 24, 2007

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS BUSINESS MEETING
To Mark Up S. Con. Res. 2, Expressing The Bipartisan Resolution On Iraq
January 24, 2007
TRANSCRIPT OF CHAIRMAN BIDENS OPENING REMARKS
CQ Transcriptions, LLC

BIDEN: Now what I would like to do -- the purpose of the meeting this morning, is to speak to a resolution that Senator Hagel and I have introduced on the floor, along with Senator Levin and Senator Olympia Snowe.

Let me begin -- speaking for myself, let me be absolutely clear from the outset what this resolution is about, what my intentions are,and what it's not about.Our resolution of disapproval is not -- I emphasize not -- an attempt to embarrass the President, it is not an attempt to demonstrate isolation.

What it is, it's an attempt to save the President from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq. I listened to all of you on this committee when Secretary Rice was here. I'm sure some of you would characterize what I'm about to say slightly differently. But I didn't hear a whole lot of support for the President's changing the mission of our forces, nor did I hear a whole lot of support for the notion of a surge, the surge being the element that would provide the breathing space -- I think was the phrase -- to allow for a political settlement. And so this amendment is designed to let the President know that there are many in both parties, Democrats and Republicans, who believe that change in our mission to go into Baghdad in the midst of a civil war, as well as surging troops to lay the groundwork for a new Iraqi political solution, is the wrong way to go, and in fact I believe will have the opposite -- emphasize "the opposite" -- effect that the President intends.

I asked myself, as all of you have, because there's not a member of this committee who is not seized with the urgency and the seriousness of what's happening in Iraq, not a single, solitary person on this committee, nor, I guess, or any in the United States Senate as a whole -- I asked myself when I heard before Christmas that the President was likely to be changing in this direction, after meeting with him, with several others in the Cabinet Room, I asked myself a simple, basic question that I think we all have asked ourselves in one form or another: And if you disagree with the President's change in policy here, what is the single most effective thing you can do to impact on changing his mind?

We have a number of constitutionally legitimate alternatives. But when I asked myself what the most effective way to accomplish what my desire is, to stop this policy in the shortest amount of time, I concluded that to start with was to make it very clear -- at least on my part, which is unusual with me; I don't think in 34 years I have ever held a press conference between Christmas and New Year's; I don't think I have ever, ever made a public statement during that time, but I did -- to make it clear and hope that others shared my view that the President's idea was a very bad idea, an idea that did not have the support of a significant majority of the military within his own administration, active as well as former military officers; that it did not have the support of conservatives,as well as liberals in both parties, in the think tanks around this state; that it shed virtually no support among the people who spend most of their life focusing on foreign policy.

And that's why I announced my opposition as early as I did. Several of you have asked me why I did it so early. That's the reason. That's the reason, hoping that before the decision was laid out in concrete the President might, in fact, reconsider.I spoke at length with a number of my colleagues in both parties,in both houses, during that period between Christmas and the time we came back to the Senate.I spoke at length with one of the most articulate opponents of the way we're proceeding -- matter of fact, overall opponents of this war -- Senator Kennedy. We discussed a number of options that were available to us.

I spoke with some of the folks in the press who asked me about this, as many of you did. And after talking and speaking with everyone, including some of my colleagues, and after having drafted some binding resolutions -- I've drafted, like many of you have, I suspect, three that I know if we had the votes and could pass -- you have 60 votes to overcome a Presidential veto, we could constitutionally change the President's authority.

The most significant way to do that -- and I've drafted such an amendment -- is to write a new authorization for the use of force.That would constitutionally render the first authorization of use offorce null and void. It would redefine in very stark terms what the Congress believed the mission to be in Iraq and could and would severely limit the President continuing down this path of escalation.

It would eliminate his ability to do that. I drafted a resolution relating to the constitutional authority the President has to call up, again, the National Guard and Reserves in our respective states, which severely limit the President's ability to put more forces into Iraq.

I flirted with the idea that my good friend Senator Dodd and Senator Kennedy and many others have about limiting troops. I concluded that was not workable as a practical matter, the way we surge in and out on a daily basis, to set an absolute number.

The way, as all of you know, it works, with the Delaware National Guard's relieving the Connecticut National Guard or the Indiana National Guard, the 5,000 or 2,000 or 9,000 guardsmen from Indiana don't immediately get on C-130s and leave and the guardsmen from Delaware take their place. The troops who are being relieved stay.They overlap with the troops coming so that they can communicate the mission and let them know what their responsibility is.

So I found it -- maybe someone else has a way to do it --but I found there is no effective way to set a hard cap.I concluded that with the thousands of troops we have in Bahrain and over the horizon, that it may require a Senate vote and House vote, a collective vote, saying, "If, God forbid, an entire battalion were tied down in Anbar province or in the middle of Baghdad, those troops that are there, specifically, to be able to save and/or relieve from their danger, our troops would require a vote."

I also looked at the funding mechanism. I've been here -- I hate to admit it, but I've been here, I believe, longer than anyone --doesn't make me right -- longer than anyone sitting at this table,including my colleague from Indiana.

I got here when we were -- and I was -- and did support funding limitations on the President of the United States -- which we constitutionally can do -- during the Vietnam War. And we can do it now. We have the constitutional authority to do that.But I also observe it's likely to take some time. And I'm not sure the likelihood in the Senate, where we have only 51 votes on myside, and several on my side opposing that, how quickly we could get that done.

And so I look back, I say to my colleagues and repeatedly ask the following question: What is it that I object to most about what this President is doing, beyond my four years of criticism of how he's proceeded?

And it is that he is moving troops into the most clearly civil sectarian conflict that exists within the country. He's moving them into the heart of that conflict in Baghdad. That, to me, is a tragic mistake.

When I consult with constitutional scholars, can we say to him --absent a new authorization of use of force, can we say by limiting funds -- even if we can cap the troops, can we say to the President,

"Mr. President, you can't take 3,000 or 5,000 or 15,000 or 20,000, as you've done on two previous occasions, and move them from Kurdistan,move them from Anbar and move them into the midst of a city of over 6 million people" -- 6,300,000, I believe.

That is a very difficult piece of legislation to write.

So what can we do to stop what I want to stop, anyway?And my co-sponsor and actually lead sponsor -- it was his idea asmuch as mine -- my friend from Nebraska can speak for himself.But that, to me, is the single most important thing, if I couldwave a wand today, that I would stop.

I listened to my friend from Virginia, who has considerable experience, who has somebody on the ground right now in the midst ofall this that's blood of his blood and bone of his bone. I listened to him.

I wonder, again, coming back to what can we do quickly --quickly. Now, I know, if I introduce these amendments, and I try to move them, it would make me feel real good, because they'd be binding. ButI don't know what I'd accomplish, because speed is of the essence. Now, I know and I read and I hear some of you tell me from bothsides that the President's not going to listen to a nonbinding resolution. Well, I hope the President listened to all of you and me and others sitting on the floor of the House of Representatives last night. We listened to him.

I saw him briefly afterwards, purely by accident. He grabbed me as he was leaving. And I hope he listened to us as well as we listened to him.I've been here for seven Presidents. I've heard a lot of State of the Union addresses. I've never heard such a deafening silence --deafening silence -- when the President has laid out the single most important part of his Presidential agenda, as I heard last night. I hope he heard it.

This is not a man who wants to do anything other than protect America. I've no doubt about that. But to tell me that none of this has any impact on the President of the United States and his policy is a little bit like telling me the Supreme Court doesn't read the press, doesn't watch television.

This is a man who at root, at bottom knows ultimately to succeed,whatever course he chooses, he needs some support. And, again, this is not to embarrass him. This is not designedto say, "Mr. President, ah-ha, you're wrong." This is designed tosay, "Mr. President, please don't go do this."And some will write, "Biden just say, 'Please, Mr. President."

Well, this is more than please if it passes. Now, again, I'm going to tread on thin ice here, but I hope those of you who know me will accept that my motive is positive. Were I sitting on this side of the aisle and this a Democratic President, on the single most significant initiative that that President needed to act on, and I disagreed with him, I would nonetheless find it difficult -- I'd find it difficult.

I hope my career demonstrates that I would take issue.But this isn't easy. This is not easy.

And so I say to my colleagues that I realize even this nonbinding resolution is a difficult vote. I also realize that leading -- the two leading Republicans in this Senate on matters relating to foreign policy and national defense policy and strategy are my friend to my right, who, as the old joke goes, has forgotten more about foreign policy than most of us are ever going to learn: the single most qualified man in the United States Congress in terms of his breadth and depth of his knowledge of foreign policy.

I don't expect him to vote for this today, and I don't know what he will do.But I also listen to the man who also has a very good reputation well beyond this chamber for his knowledge about defense policy. And I observed and read what was in the record that Senator Warner -- and Chairman Warner proposed.

It is, in many ways, tougher and more critical and more prescriptive than what Senator Hagel and I are hoping you'll consider today. But what it does point out is, if the co-sponsors are those who spoke in favor of that proposal already, it does suggest that there are a whole lot of people here on both sides of the aisle who think the President's making a mistake -- a whole lot of people.

I am proud of what we're about to vote on, but I have no pride of authorship here. My friend from Nebraska played the major part in helping -- not helping, in drafting this. It was a truly collegial operation.

I will not attempt to speak for him. But I can tell you if and when we pass the Biden-Levin, Hagel-Biden, Hagel-Hagel -- whatever you want to call it -- resolution today, that I am completely, totally open to sitting down with Senator Warner and negotiating something that will accomplish the end, which I will not yield on, of saying, "Mr. President, please don't -- don't -- proceed with the policy you've outlined."

And if it makes it easier or if it's more efficacious toadopt some of his language, I'm prepared to do it. If it enhances theprospect of it generating an overwhelming support for the propositionthat, "Mr. President, stop" -- and I don't care what it's called,whose it is, how it functions.

So, folks, this is our first, most immediate, and I believe most practical way to affect the President. I'll say bluntly to my Republican colleagues, I've made this case in the Democratic Caucus.

I think all of my caucus -- my Democratic friends will say there is an overwhelming support for this approach.But there's also one other thing, and I commit to everyone today,and I will end with this: that unless the President demonstrates very quickly that he is unlikely to continue down the road he's on, this will be only the first step in this committee. I will be introducing-- I know Senator Dodd may today introduce and another may -- I know Senator Obama, Senator Kerry, probably all of you have binding, constitutionally legitimate, binding pieces of legislation. We will bring them up.

Again, I say to my colleagues who's worked with me for years,I've never said anything I haven't delivered on. I have an absolute commitment on my part, on both sides of the aisle, that we will debate, we will, and I will support other means by which we can effectively, constitutionally limit the President.

But at the end of the day I don't think there's a single person here who thinks we can do that quickly.

And so I say to my friend Senator Lugar, I hope that the way to avoid rancorous debate on this among us in the Senate is thatw e can let the President know, in a bipartisan way, "Mr. President,you're making a mistake. You're making a mistake.

"You're intending to help the country and help our troops and have the exact opposite act."

If we do that, whether or not he heeds our voice over the next couple of months -- and I might add, practically, it takes five months for this surge to happen. Every month, the President's going to have to revisit his decision. He's going to have to revisit in deciding whether he's going to extend the Marine battalion, whether he's going to extend a National Guard unit, whether he's going to extend Reserve, whether he's going to extend -- he has to make that decision as the rotation comes up. So he will have to revisit this as starkly as he did last month, next month, the following month, the following month.

And I hope we can begin to build the groundwork for a bipartisan consensus to change course in Iraq. We should be drawing down forces, as many on this committee on both sides have suggested.

We should be drawing down forces, as the Baker-Hamilton commission suggested.We should be drawing down forces, as -- I think we had a total of 15 stars sitting here -- generals -- as they suggested.We should be drawing down, forcing the Iraqis to understand that a political solution is the only way out.We should be giving them -- we should help them have their constitution function, which calls for regional governments and local control.

We should be insisting and supporting their effort to use oil to bind the nation together, rather than as a point of a discord.There is still hope. There's still hope. But we need a radical change in course.

So, Mr. President -- Mr. Chairman, at the appropriate time, I'mgoing to introduce or I'll ask maybe Senator Hagel to introduce theresolution.

And, obviously, the committee is able to amend anything we put forward. But it is my intention -- and obviously, it's up to each of you -- to try to keep it clean and move to table amendments attached to it.

Because I promise you -- it may not be enough to satisfy you, but I promise you all, you will have every opportunity, not in the longterm, in the near term -- next week, the following week, the following week -- because this is not going away -- to introduce your legislation and your amendments.

But obviously that's going to be the decision of the committee, not the chairman. And so, I yield to you, Mr. Chairman, for any opening comments.

And then begin the process.