MTP Transcript for April 29, 2007

SEN. BIDEN:  I—despite the doubts I heard, I voted to give the president the authority to avoid a war.  Look, Tim, he also had—there was no question in the mind—remember we were, we were on this show, Dick Lugar and I.  We had the Biden/Lugar authorization through—of the president, which was much more constrained—much more constrained than the authority he actually got. But—and what, what happened?  What happened was, I didn’t know Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman were separately negotiating with the president until I got a call on a Monday night from Dick Lugar saying, “Look, we’re going to lose our, our, our amendment, which is much more constrictive on the president because there’s been a separate deal being cut.” He had 55 votes no matter what.

MR. RUSSERT:  But make no mistake about it, the bill that you voted for authorized the president to go to war.

SEN. BIDEN:  It allowed the president to go to war.  It did not authorize him to go to it.  You make it sound like it said, “Mr. President, go to war.” It said, “Mr. President, don’t go to war.” It said “go to the United Nations. Mr. President, don’t go to war, try to get a deal here.  Mr. President, get the inspectors back in.  Mr. President, tell us that that’s what you’re about to do.  And, Mr. President, if all else fails, you have authority to use force.” That’s what it said.

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe we’re safer now that Saddam is gone?

SEN. BIDEN:  I believe we are less safe as a nation now because what has happened is the conduct of this war has so badly damaged our readiness; the conduct of this war, and the, and, and, and the blood and resources we’ve had to expend, it has limited our credibility around the world and limited our flexibility in terms of the use of force.  Here we are, we could end the carnage in Darfur tomorrow, but why aren’t we doing it?  In part we’re not doing it because we are so tied down.  We could fundamentally change the dynamic in Afghanistan.  Why aren’t we doing it?  Because we are tied down. So in a broad, broad sense—so when I come back on my 41^st, if you invite me back, or my 48^th trip here, you don’t say, “Well Biden, you know, you, you really like Saddam,” you know, that’s not what this is about.  What it’s about is Saddam was a butcher, the world’s happy, may he burn in hell.  He deserves it.  But in terms of our globally—global positioning, our geopolitical strategy, as the think-tank guys down here talk about it, we are worse off than we were when we had Saddam sitting there because of the impact on our military and the impact on our credibility.

MR. RUSSERT:  The leader of the Democrats, Harry Reid, two weeks ago offered some comments.  Let me share them with you and our viewers and come back and talk about them.

(Videotape, April 19, 2007)

SEN. MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D-NV):  I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, secretary of defense—and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows—that this war is lost.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe the secretary of state, secretary of defense believe the war is lost?

SEN. BIDEN:  I believe the secretary of state and secretary of defense believe they don’t know what to do with it, and they plan on handing this war over to the next president.  I said that a year ago.

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe the war is lost?

SEN. BIDEN:  I—this is, this is not a game show, where you know, a,a, a football game.  What this is about is we have lost 3300 dead, we have 24,000 wounded, and, and we still have an opportunity to deal with the possibility of not trading a dictator for chaos, and—but it will not happen unless we have a serious change in our operating strategic premise.  And that is we have to decentralize, not centralize this government.  We’ve got to get the world community in on owning part of this, by calling an international conference to put pressure on the regional powers.  If we don’t do those two things, I don’t see a happy ending to this whole undertaking.  We may be forced into a position where there’s no option, at some point, to withdraw and try to contain the chaos.  The fact of the matter is that there is—I am worried about—my son gets angry with this.  My son’s unit may get sent to Iraq, and if it does, he goes.  I don’t want that to happen.  But if it happens, it happens.  But I don’t want my grandson going.  And how we leave Iraq is going to determine not merely whether my son goes or not, but whether my grandson goes.  So the idea of winning and losing this is the wrong language, in my view.  It’s about salvaging our interest, or not salvaging our interest.  And we’re very close to not being able to salvage any of these policies.

MR. RUSSERT:  But these are serious words.  If Senator Reid says the war is lost, that’s an important choice of words, it’s an important message.

SEN. BIDEN:  And it’s an important message I’m not delivering.

MR. RUSSERT:  So you disagree with him?

SEN. BIDEN:  I—he can say what he says, I’ll—I stick by what I said.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you say—if you—if you come to the conclusion that the war is lost, then you have an obligation to try to end it and stop funding.

SEN. BIDEN:  Well, I think you have an obligation to figure out how to salvage your interests.  Look, sometimes the game is lost, but what do you do? You may decide you’re going to make sure that your halfback ends up winning the scoring championship by letting him run 12 more times.  Look, this is not absolute.  There’s nothing absolute.  If you believe—what is lost, is lost the opportunity to establish a democracy there?  Well, that was lost on the day we got there.  But if it is about whether or not you can establish a stable regime, an environment so this war doesn’t metastasize, you do not have Turkey in after the Kurds, you don’t have the Iranians in full-bore, you don’t find this thing blowing up around the region, that is not lost yet.  But it could be lost.  What is the prize?  What are we attempting to do here?  What I’m attempting to do is protect American interests, so that we do not end up a year, three, five and 10 from now where there is total chaos in the Middle East well beyond the borders of Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT:  The Iraq Study Group said that your idea of partitioning Iraq is, is wrong, and...

SEN. BIDEN:  Well...

MR. RUSSERT:  ...and, and would, and would result in even wider civil war. James Baker, the chairman of that committee, said that he’s talked to experts and they believe it would trigger a, quote, a “huge civil war.” Major cities are mixed between the Shiites and the Sunnis and that basically your plan just wouldn’t work.

SEN. BIDEN:  Basically, Baker’s in a minority.  Henry Kissinger’s signed onto that plan.  Madeleine Albright has signed onto the plan.  If you look at the Baker report, it goes on to say “We may get where Biden is talking about.” Guess what?  We’re getting there.  What is this administration implicitly acknowledging by building a wall?  Give me a break.  They’re building a wall, and they’re talking about a centralized government?  Now, look, Tim, you know what happened in the Balkans.  Once there was an agreement reached as to this—political agreement reached as to the separation of the parties, from Brcko to Sarajevo to Srebrenica, there was an incredible diminution in the internecine warfare.  Why?  Because we’re in the context of an overall political settlement.  What this is all about is maneuvering each of these groups to determine who is going to call the shots.  Once you’ve laid that out and you put yourself in a position where—look, there’s never been a time in history that I can think of, Tim, where there’s been a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian violence that has ended even remotely reasonably without a federated system.  Never.  What makes Jim Baker and everyone else think that this is going to be the first time in history that it’s different?  And mark my words, everybody’s coming in the direction that I’m talking about.  There’s an inevitability to it.

MR. RUSSERT:  Before we take a break, Rudy Giuliani, one of the Republicans running for president, offered this analysis of the Democrats.

He said if a Democrat’s “elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of September 11^th.  ...

“If a Republican’s elected,” he said, “especially if” it’s “him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.” ...

“‘But the question is how long will it take,’” “‘how many casualties will we have?’ Giuliani said.  ‘If we’re on defense [with a Democratic president], we’ll have more losses,’” “‘it will go on longer.

“‘I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense.  The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.’”

SEN. BIDEN:  While Rudy and his friends were cheering on Star Wars, I made a speech the day before 9/11 to the National Press Club saying that because of the preoccupation of this administration of not focusing on terror, we are going to have a major terrorist attack and it’s likely to come in the belly of a plane or in the hull of a ship.  Rudy Giuliani continues to abide by and adhere to this utterly failed policy.  The message Rudy should be sending is to the president, “Mr. President, you have not imported any, not a single solitary major recommendation, Mr. President, of the 9/11 Commission.  Mr. President the majority of American cities still don’t have any interoperable capability.  Mr. President, all those cargo containers that come ashore in my city, they’re not being inspected, Mr. President.”

I say to Rudy, Rudy, you’re directing your, your ire at the wrong guy, the guy you continue to cling to.  This administration has been almost criminally negligent on what it has done to deal with protecting the homeland.  They’ve cut thousands of cops across the nation.  They’re the ones who’re going to find terrorists walking into an apartment complex that’s been empty.  They have not done virtually anything the 9/11 Commission has recommended.  Rudy is being Rudy, and Rudy is dead wrong, and I really look forward to debating Rudy on this subject.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re going to take a quick break.  More of our conversation with Joe Biden, Democratic candidate for president in 2008.  Our Meet the Candidate series continues right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  Meet the Candidates 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden right after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we’re back, talking to Senator Joe Biden.

I was up on your Web site looking at some of your campaign positions and promises.

SEN. BIDEN:  I, I should go on that site.

MR. RUSSERT:  Yeah.  Here’s what you say about energy:  “Biden would make a substantial national commitment by dramatically increasing investment in energy and climate change research” “technology.

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