Sen. Biden is Interviewed on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer
April 13, 2008
WOLF BLITZER: This is LATE EDITION, the last word in Sunday talk.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Thanks to the surge, we've renewed and revived the prospect of success.
BLITZER (voice-over): President Bush vows to stay course in Iraq. But will election year politics force a change? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic chairman, Joe Biden, and the panel's top Republican, Richard Lugar, weigh in.
The view from Iraq, we'll talk exclusively with Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari.
Democratic showdown.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, D-ILL.: The American people, they are standing up and they are saying we are ready for change.
SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, D-N.Y.: Enough with the speeches.
Enough with the rhetoric. Let's do what we know works.
BLITZER: We'll assess the Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton race with Clinton supporter Senator Evan Bayh, and Obama supporter Senator Bob Casey.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.: There is it no substitute for victory. And withdrawal is defeat.
BLITZER: How will presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain win over voters despite his support for an unpopular war?
We'll talk with McCain supporter, Senator Joe Lieberman.
Plus, insight and analysis from three of the best political team on television. The first hour of LATE EDITION begins right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Live, from CNN in New York, this is LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER.
BLITZER: It's 11:00 a.m. here in New York, 8:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, 6:00 p.m. in Baghdad. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us for LATE EDITION.
We begin with the much-anticipated report to Congress this week from the top U.S. military commander and the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq, the overall assessment from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
There has been progress but the situation is still fragile and a mass exit of U.S. troops would reverse the gains made, reverse those gains potentially very, very quickly. Joining us now, the two top members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his home state of Delaware, the Democratic chairman, Joe Biden. And in his home state of Indiana, the committee's top Republican, Richard Lugar.
Senators, thanks very much for joining us. Welcome back to LATE EDITION. Senator Biden, let me start with you. And I'll play a little clip of General Petraeus in his basic bottom line summary of the current situation in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, CMDR., MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ: We haven't turned any corners. We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator and the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: He obviously remains deeply concerned that if the U.S.
were to too quickly withdraw troops from Iraq, it would be reversible and a bad situation would be made even worse. What did you think of his testimony?
BIDEN: Well, I thought his testimony was pretty straightforward.
I think the header on your program, "will election year politics change Iraqi politics?", that won't change Iraqi politics. Reality on the ground will change the politics in Iraq.
We cannot sustain troops there. And I didn't read the general's response you just put up there the way you did. He is saying, look, we have made some progress, some progress. We haven't made a lot of progress. And what little progress we made is reversible.
The reason it's reversible is not so much drawing down troops.
The reason it's reversible is what little political accommodation has been made is very fragile. The whole deal here for this surge, Wolf, was to provide breathing space so the parties that are killing each other, Sunnis, Shia, Shia, Shia, stop killing one another.
There is no evidence -- let me emphasize, no evidence that has been done.
BLITZER: I take it, Senator Biden, you don't have a whole lot of confidence in the conduct of the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki?
BIDEN: No, no I don't. And nor do I have any confidence in the conduct of the political policy of President Bush.
BLITZER: What about you, Senator Lugar?
LUGAR: Well, I thought the hearing demonstrated that we don't have still a definition of success or victory. As a matter of fact, I asked General Petraeus for some idea really of a formula for how the politics of Iraq might turn out, leaving aside the intrusions of Iran and al Qaeda, which came into the situation.
He really had no response to this, as you pointed out. He saw it as fragile, perhaps reversible. I thought the exchange between Senator McCain and Senator Levin in that hearing was important. Levin was asking the same question McCain said, essentially.
Iraq will be a stable, prosperous democratic country, no threat to its neighbors. Now that is at least the definition of success where we're headed. However, what was being described in the hearings, obviously, was worlds away from that type of definition of success.
And what we were asking in the hearings is how do we get there given the strains on our armed forces to which our military people are testifying, the strains on our economy, the world economy generally, and these intrusions that kept coming up from Iran and where is al Qaeda?
BLITZER: You know, Senator Biden, the U.S. troop levels in Iraq went up to almost 170,000 at the height of the so-called surge by July, about 30,000 troops will be out. It will go down to about 140,000. And then General Petraeus is recommending and President Bush has accepted this recommendation that there be a 45-day pause to reassess what's going on.
After 45 days they then take another look, see where the dust settles and then they move on. Here's how he phrased it using his jargon. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETRAEUS: War is not a linear phenomenon. It's a -- you know, it's a calculus, not arithmetic. And that is why, again, I have recommended conditions-based reductions following the completion of the surge forces.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: I guess that is his response to some Democratic critics like senators Clinton and Obama, for example, who want a -- much more of a timetable for withdrawing brigades of U.S. combat forces on a regular monthly basis.
He's saying condition-based meaning you have got to see what is on the ground before you make any sort of commitment for further withdrawals. What do you think of that?
BIDEN: Well, let me tell you what I think he means. What he means is he's not even going to draw down to 140,000 until midsummer.
That is 10,000 above the pre-surge level. Then he is going to wait 45 days, Wolf. Forty-five days takes you into the middle of the election cycle after September.
Whether you draw down or not, you're going to leave the next president of the United States, by the time they're sworn in, with somewhere around 130,000 troops. So what he's really saying is we have no plan to draw down. We don't know what we're going to do and we're really leaving this for the next president.
That is the factual translation. That is what factually will occur. That's what will happen even if in September or October, 45 days after the reconsideration comes up, they decide to further draw down. They're out of office. They are gone by that time.
So really what this is, is punting to the next president. And I asked General Petraeus, I said, would your recommendations be the same if you were the central commander, not just Iraq commander? Or you were the chairman of the Joint Chiefs?
And he said, they would be different. He is telling you what he needs in Iraq. Let me read Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he said: "Having forces in Iraq at the level they are will not allow us to fill the needs we have in Afghanistan."
And when I asked Ambassador Crocker where al Qaeda was a greater threat, in Afghanistan or in Iraq? He said, clearly in Afghanistan.
So this is a gigantic cost we're paying in terms of our security.
Last point I'll make is General -- if you look at General -- the chairman -- the vice chairman the Army, he said, I've never seen our lack of strategic depth where it is today because of the commitments in Iraq. This is costing us big time.
BLITZER: Is the U.S. military overstretched to the point that it can't get the missions done with, Senator Lugar?
LUGAR: Well, the testimony seems to be to that effect, that is that we simply do not have presently enough armed forces to accomplish our missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, quite apart from anything else that might occur in the world.
And, yet in this hearing on Iraq, Iran kept being mentioned. The fact that the Iranians are intruding. A proxy war is being fought.
In other words, it was almost as if we were justifying our continued presence in Iraq with the fact that we may be in a conflict with Iran, and furthermore, the al Qaeda, wherever they may be.
It's a very confusing picture to say the least. Now it seems to me we're going to have to come to grips with what is possible in Iraq and what kind of forces are required for that. But we're certainly not at that point in the hearings.
This is -- I agree with Joe Biden, was simply punting the thing down the road and probably into the next administration. And whoever the candidates may be right now, they face an awesome task of turning around a situation that really has not been resolved during this administration.
And with the depleted armed forces, depleted funds, congressional problems that are very partisan -- for example, in one poll, 81 percent of Republicans were in favor of staying the course in Iraq, 27 percent of Democrats. This is really a polarized situation which is clearly observable, I'm sure, by Iraqis, Iranians, or anybody else looking into it.
BLITZER: And the costs are clearly in the billions and billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. We're going to talk about the money in just a moment.
BLITZER: We have a lot more to discuss with Senators Biden and Lugar, including their take on the race for the White House, as well.
That's coming up.
And this important programming note: Tonight, only here on CNN, the Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- they'll face some of the hard questions on faith and values.
Our own Campbell Brown hosts what's being called "The Compassion Forum." That begins tonight, 8 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.
"Late Edition" continues, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back to "Late Edition." I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from New York. Coming up, by the way, in our next hour, a "Late Edition" exclusive, we'll get the Iraqi perspective on the war in Iraq from the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. That's coming up in the next hour.
But right now, we're continuing our conversation with the two top members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar.
Senator Lugar, there's growing outrage that the United States is still footing the bill for billions and billions of dollars of what's going on in Iraq right now, at a time of huge economic wind falls or the Iraqis, thanks to the economic gains from the oil exports.
According to the GAO, they're going to take in about $56 billion in oil export revenue this year, maybe even a lot more if the price per barrel goes above $110 a barrel, and this at a time when the Iraqis already have about $30 billion in surpluses in U.S. banks alone.
What's going on? Why is the U.S. continuing to foot the bill, at a time when the Iraqis are accumulating these kinds of numbers?
LUGAR: Well, it's a very good question, which came up during the hearings without a good answer. The facts are as you've stated them, Wolf. And we have really have to require the Iraqis to pay for much more of their defense and their government.
One response of the Iraqis is that their central government is so dysfunctional they're unable to spend the money.
By that I mean, specifically, that they do not have civil servants who with work with the electrical power companies or deal with health or education or so forth.
So, if you really have no infrastructure, people who are public servants who can deal with this, the money stays in the bank, and as you pointed out, even $30 billion of helping us out, at least, with some capital in the United States.
It's a totally unsatisfying situation, and one which I hope that these hearings will help to correct.
BLITZER: Senator Levin, Senator Biden, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, made the point that the Iraqis, last year, did allocate some $10 billion for reconstruction, building of roads and bridges, schools, hospitals, money the U.S. has largely spent -- about
$27 billion -- for that kind of reconstruction.
But at a time of economic distress in the United States, fears of recession, he noted that, of that $10 billion that the Iraqis earmarked for reconstruction, he said, according to the Government Accountability Office, they only spent 4.4 percent. The White House insists they spent 24 percent of that money.
Irrespective, it is still a small number, compared to what U.S.
taxpayers are spending for Iraqi roads and bridges and other infrastructure developments there.
BIDEN: It goes to Dick Lugar's point. They don't have a functioning government, which is one of the points that, unless you get a functioning government, unless you get some kind of political solution, none of this is going to matter.
We're spending $3 billion a week, Wolf. Yet, Dick Lugar and Joe Biden and a majority of the members of our committee think we should be spending, for example, $1.5 billion to see to it that Pakistan doesn't split apart.
We're told we don't have the money to spend $1.5 billion in Pakistan over the next years because we need it in Iraq.
Just imagine, if they just picked up $1.5 billion of what we need to deal with Pakistan and, in turn, Al Qaida, where it lives, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it would be a big difference.
This is one of the opportunity costs of continuing this war with no end in sight and no political plan to end it. It's killing us, literally and figuratively, in other parts of the world, let alone here at home.
BLITZER: And the other point, Senator Lugar, that came out and is causing a lot of outrage out there in Capitol Hill, as well as among the American public, is the whole involvement of Iran in Iraq.
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seems to have a pretty good relationship with the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They just recently exchanged formal visits.
Here was the warning that President Bush made to the Iranians on Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: He didn't go beyond that "to protect our interests."
He said -- but it's clear what he meant. The question to you is this. Is Iran helping Iraq try to get some sort of stability or undermining what the Iraqis and the U.S. are trying to do?
LUGAR: Well, the Iranians, as a matter of fact, are helping several factions in Iraq that are rival factions.
BLITZER: You're referring to Shiite militias...
LUGAR: Yes.
BLITZER: ... who are opposed, in large measure, to the Iraqi government -- certainly opposed to the U.S.
LUGAR: They are. And at the same time, they're helping Presidential Maliki, from time to time, likewise. That's why Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, was embraced when he came there, certainly in a much more cordial way than many of our emissaries.
I think the thing I was concerned about is that some of the testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker said, in essence, if you're not that interested in Iraq and how all that works out, you better be really worried about Iran. That may be the big factor.
Now, that's been a big factor since 2003. That's really not a new factor. Or, if you're not interested in Iran, how about Al Qaida?
Joe Biden just made the very important point that certainly some testimony on Capitol Hill this week said that Al Qaida is principally in Pakistan -- in Pakistan. It seeps over the boarder, occasionally, to Afghanistan. And maybe a few cohorts get to Iraq.
But nevertheless, in terms of our priorities and our overall strategy, the hearings were not very helpful. Because, essentially, we did not get into the overall status of our armed forces, our economy, and our ability to pay for this, quite apart from exactly who enemy is, what the priorities are, in terms of our expenditure of forces and money.
BLITZER: We're almost out of time, but I want to...
BIDEN: Wolf, could I make a very...
BLITZER: Make a quick point.
BLITZER: Because then I want to ask you both...
BIDEN: Yes, a very quick point. The president gets it wrong.
The president says, and implicated -- they implied that, if we didn't like Iran, we'd make sure Iraq didn't like Iran.
Iran and Iraq like one another. They actually have a relationship with a guy we're pouring billions of dollars to, and kissing Ahmadinejad on both cheeks -- as if we can control that.
I think the president should get realistic about what, in fact, what control we have in Iraq and whether or not Iran is going to have any influence. They will have some influence, no matter what. It's called geography. They sit on the boarder.
BLITZER: All right. Let me quickly pick both of your brains on the race for the White House.
(LAUGHTER)
First, to you, Senator Biden. You haven't endorsed either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Do you plan on doing that?
BIDEN: No, I do not. But I'm helping them both when they call me. I speak to them not infrequently. I guess, on average, three, four times a month, they each call me. And I'm happy to give them advice when they ask it. But I will leave that to the folks in the primaries to decide.
BLITZER: How come? Why don't you want to weigh in?
BIDEN: Because I think that -- they're both my friends. And quite frankly, Wolf, the moment I weighed in, you'd be speculating as to whether I was looking for a job, so...
(LAUGHTER)
And I'm not looking for a job. And so I'm going to help whoever the nominee is. And they both know that.
Immediately, when I got out of the race in Iowa, they each asked me, almost the same day, to join them. I told them I would not. I would not endorse either one. I've kept that commitment, and I'm helping them when they call me.
BLITZER: You seem to have a pretty good job, right now, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
BIDEN: I do. I like that job.
(LAUGHTER)
BLITZER: All right. Senator Lugar, I'm sure, would like that job.
But let me ask you, Senator Lugar -- and you've had that job in the past. I know it's better to be chairman than the ranking member.
But let's talk about Indiana. This is a state you know about as well as anyone. You've been elected statewide, I don't even know how many times, but I'm guessing at least five or 10, as a governor, as a senator, and everything else.
Let's talk about who's going to win on May 6th in Indiana. Who do you believe -- will it be Hillary Clinton who will win Indiana, or Barack Obama?
LUGAR: For the moment, I believe that Senator Clinton has a lead. But it's very competitive. And it might be largely determined by independents and maybe even some Republicans who will vote in the Democratic primary.
Indiana's rules of the game are such that you can vote in the primary you wish to vote in. It ought to be an honest choice. And Democrats are protesting that they're fearful Republicans crossing over will foul up nominations for other offices while they're busy attempting to fix whatever is going to occur on the Democratic presidential side.
BLITZER: We'll leave it on that note.
Senators -- the two top senators of the Foreign Relations Committee. I know they are personal friends, have a very good relationship. And I'm glad both of you could join us today on "Late Edition."
Thanks, Senators, for coming in.
LUGAR: Thanks, Wolf.
BIDEN: Thank you, Wolf.
