Senator Biden is Interviewed on CNN American Morning
December 26, 2006
ANCHOR: MILES O’BRIEN
O'BRIEN: Delaware Democrat Joe BIDEN joining us from Wilmington.
Hope you had a good Christmas, Senator. Good to have you with us.
SEN. JOE BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: I did, Miles. I hope you did as well.
O'BRIEN: I did. Thank you.
I want to share with you a couple opinions from members of the Senate, on the other side of the aisle, as they say, about this notion of a surge of troops in Iraq. First of all, Lindsey Graham, who on the ABC program "This Week" on Sunday said this, "The security environment in Baghdad has very much deteriorated. You're not going to have a political solution with this much violence. So the surge of troops is, I think, is very necessary." He just go back from Iraq.
And then listen to Senator McCain not too long ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I'd like to say that I believe conditions have improved. Certainly in Baghdad they have not. I believe that there is still a compelling reason to have an increase in troops here in Baghdad and in Anbar province in order to bring the sectarian violence under control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Do you see compelling reasons for a surge in troops?
BIDEN: Well, no I don't. I think there's a compelling reason for a political settlement. I think my friends -- I've been there seven times as well into Baghdad, as recently as this summer. And the time has passed for additional troops. If we had 100,000 troops to put in there three years ago, things would be very different. And if we had listened to the generals three years ago they'd be different. We should listen to the generals now, Miles. The generals say we don't need more troops. It's not going to work. We've tried it already. We surged this summer.
O'BRIEN: The generals are now saying they would accept more troops in Iraq.
BIDEN: No, it's very interesting. If you notice General Abizaid going out says no. General Chiarelli, the No. 2 guy, says no. Now you have General Casey saying, I will accept more troops. That sounds to me like a man who is listening to his commander in chief, saying you're going to get more troops. There is no overall call for more troops, and the Baker -- the bipartisan Baker/Hamilton Commission came along and said more troops is not the answer. We should be doing the opposite. We should be drawing down troops gradually, forcing the Iraqis to meet their own needs to end this civil war by a political agreement. If you don't do that...
O'BRIEN: But you're in a classic chicken-and-egg problem here.
BIDEN: Right.
O'BRIEN: Because any sort of political solution requires an end to the violence, or the at least a de-escalation to the violence. And what we're seeing is just the opposite. So how do you get out of that cycle?
BIDEN: I would argue you've got the egg before the chicken. The fact of the matter is, the reason why there's continued violence is because there is no political accommodation. As long as the Iraqis know that we're going to stay there, there is no overwhelming need for the Shia to get their act together and deal with Sadr. As long as there is no worry that we're going to be drawing down troops, the Sunnis don't have to make accommodations they need to make. We cannot want peace more than the Iraqis. And 30,000, Miles, 20,000 to 30.000 troops, we did that before, three times. We did it as recently as this summer. And here's why it doesn't work -- our troops go in. They clear neighborhoods. The bad guys leave. We can't stay long enough. Then we leave, put in Iraqis. The Iraqis are infiltrated. The bad guys come back in and everything breaks out all over again. We don't have enough troops to do it.
O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk about -- how would you do -- let's get specific then. How would you create a political solution here? I mean, do you really think the government of Nuri Al-Maliki, the prime minister, is up to the challenge here?
BIDEN: Well, let me put it this way, let's assume it isn't up to the challenge. How does putting 30,000 troops move him up to the challenge, No. 1. No. 2 ...
O'BRIEN: Let's put that aside, though. Let's just talk about how you would create a political solution.
BIDEN: OK, the way you create a political solution is let the Iraqi constitution work. You let them and we encourage them to move into federal regions, which their constitution calls for. Article one of their constitution, the Iraqi constitution, says "We are a federal system." And this federal system allows the local federal jurisdictions, the states, in effect, within Iraq, the governates, to have their own local police forces. They can protect themselves with their own local police forces. Allow that to take place.
Secondly, move in and get the Kurds and the Shia to agree on what was promised in the constitution, giving the Sunnis a piece of the oil. They have no revenues in the Sunni Triangle. Give them a piece of the oil revenues. Oil should be used as the glue to hold this country together rather than split it apart. And make it clear them, we're not going to stay there forever while they try to work out these two accommodations. They better get going, because we can not save them from themselves.
O'BRIEN: Senator, won't that lead to the breakup of Iraq as we know it, though? Isn't that -- you don't call it partitioning. A lot of people would say that's a partition.
BIDEN: Well, it's not partitioning. It's what their constitution calls for. Their constitution, Miles, said, we are a loosely federated system, that we, in fact, can allow to have any region have local control over the police, local control over the law. It's just like the state of New York, the state of Pennsylvania, the state of California has their own state troopers, et cetera.
But the real key here, Miles, is you've got to give some resources to each of these regions. A little bit like -- you know, let me put it this way. The Iraqi constitution doesn't even allow the central government to tax; it has no taxation power. Doesn't that tell you something about how they envisioned this country to be? And you've got to give them breathing room, just like we did in Bosnia. We've had roughly 30,000 troops there 10 years. Thank God none of them have been killed. Why? You gave each of these groups breathing room. And now after 10 years in Bosnia, they're coming back together again. You want to hold Iraq together, you better give them some breathing room.
O'BRIEN: Senator Joe BIDEN, thanks for your time. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.
BIDEN: Thank you very much, Miles. Thank you.
