This is Joel from the Biden Blog. Yesterday, Tony Snow made a comment about Senator Biden that our campaign manager felt warranted a response. After all, we have seen Senator Biden's positions mischaracterized in the past. While we know most will see through Mr. Snow's comments, we feel strongly about confronting any distortions of the Senator's position on Iraq.
With that, here is the response from Campaign Manager Luis Navarro, after the jump.
On his way out of the White House, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to suggest Senator Biden has just been back from Iraq and, as a result, believes the surge is working:
Q Democrats are saying that this GAO report basically shows that President Bush's Iraq strategy is not working. How do you respond to them? Why should they not view it that way?
MR. SNOW: Well, number one, they ought to talk to the Democrats who have just come back from Iraq who said just the opposite. So, I mean, you've had Senator Durbin, Senator Levin. You had a number of key Democrats who have come back and talked about -- Senator Biden, even -- suggesting that there have been, in fact, significant changes under the surge and there have been significant progress.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
While Senator Biden has never doubted our armed forces’ ability to achieve military success, the purpose of the so-called surge was to buy time for Iraq's central government to forge a political settlement. As Senator Biden has repeatedly pointed out, that is not happening and will not happen. Absent an occupation we cannot sustain or a dictator we cannot support, Iraq will not be governed from the center at this point in its history. Senator Biden believes that this war must end now. The best way to do that without trading a dictator for chaos as we withdraw is through a comprehensive political solution that separates the combatants within an ethnic federal system, which is called for in the Iraqi Constitution. Specifically, the federal system must allow the three parties to share in the profits of oil revenues and take responsibility for their own administration of daily life. The central government would focus on border security, Iraqi force development, and currency management.
Republicans won't be allowed to distort Joe Biden's position in a vain effort to spin the failures of their policy.
After President Bush's Iraq Speech at the American Legion Convention, Senator Biden responded later that day with strong words for the president. From the full text of his prepared remarks:
"We'll be hearing a lot about the "surge" over the next several weeks, but remember its purpose: to buy time for the central government in Iraq to get its act together and win the trust of all Iraqis.
"That will not happen.
"Absent an occupation which we cannot sustain or the return of a dictator which we cannot support; Iraq cannot be governed from the center at this point in its history. There is no trust within the government, no trust of the government by the people, no capacity by the government to deliver security and services, and no prospect it will build that trust and capacity any time soon.
As was first mentioned by Bob Johnson the other day, Mike Glover had the story for the AP:
Biden, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Congress will launch hearings on the Iraq war the first week it's back in session. He rejected Bush's assertion that an increase in the number of troops has improved the situation in Iraq.
"The president continues to suffer from what I refer to as the Katrina complex," he said. "The Katrina complex is, ignore all the warnings, bad things happen, continue to follow the same bad, failed policy and things get worse and worse. That's exactly what this policy is doing to us."
Does that sound like support for the surge to you?
Luis Navarro
Campaign Manager
Biden for President