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Interview With Senator Joseph Biden

Aired July 11, 2003 - 15:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Democratic Senator Joe Biden is among those weighing in on the controversy over the president's State of the Union remarks about Iraqi efforts to get nuclear material. Given that the president told reporters today that his speech was cleared by U.S. intelligence services, I asked Senator Biden a short time ago if he thinks the CIA is going to take the fall for this controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: Well, it sure looks like that's what's being set up right now. And, again, I can't attest to whether it was or wasn't cleared by the intelligence services.

But I do know that Secretary Powell made a very powerful speech less than a week after the State of the Union at the United Nations. And he did not mention this, which would have been compelling evidence to mention at the U.N. So, maybe if they didn't know beforehand, this before the intelligence -- before the State of the Union, they apparently must have known between then and the secretary's speech, because he didn't use it.

And so my wonder is, why, when they found out that it wasn't true, why, in order to enhance our credibility as a nation, they didn't come out and say, look, we made a mistake on that, because there was plenty of reason to justify, in my view, going against Saddam Hussein, without the need for trying to make a case they reconstructed their nuclear capacity.

WOODRUFF: But, basically, the White House argument is that they're cleared of responsibility.

BIDEN: Well, I don't know what to say to that, Judy. I mean, how -- well, it doesn't seem logical to me.

Again, let me say it this way. Assume the president didn't know. And I'm prepared to believe him, that he didn't know that it was false and that the CIA, even though everybody else seemed to know it was false inside, we have now learned, said, no, go ahead and say it. It's OK. Why would Powell have not used the same evidence, making the case as to why there was an immediate danger with...

WOODRUFF: But the intelligence community is telling our reporters and others that they told the White House not to use this information.

BIDEN: That's what I'm told as well, Judy. I mean, this is he said/she said right now. I mean, I find it hard to believe that the intelligence community, at the point of the State of the Union, had not made somebody in the White House, whether it's the president or not, the national security adviser, somebody aware that this was not correct, unless they never saw the speech. But now you have the White House saying, Dr. Rice saying, they cleared the speech. I just don't understand it.

WOODRUFF: Well, the president himself is saying it.

BIDEN: I don't understand it, Judy.

Let's assume that the intelligence community is not telling the truth to you and others and that the president is absolutely accurate. Let's go beyond that. The day after the speech and the five or six or seven days between that speech and the very important speech the secretary of state made...

WOODRUFF: Right, right, I hear you, yes.

BIDEN: Nobody said -- why didn't the secretary of state use the same evidence?

WOODRUFF: What do you make of the information now coming out of London that Prime Minister Tony Blair's senior people are saying privately, they don't think weapons of mass destruction will ever be found in Iraq?

BIDEN: Well, that doesn't surprise me.

But let me tell you, Judy. I don't want to lose -- take our eye off the ball here. In 1998, UNSCOM, the U.N. inspectors made a report to the Security Council saying, this guy has X number of liters of V.X., anthrax, etcetera.

WOODRUFF: Right.

BIDEN: The whole world believed that to be the case. It was -- the burden was on Saddam to prove he didn't have those. That was sufficient justification as far back as July, Judy, if you take a look. And throughout, I have said repeatedly, don't exaggerate the evidence. Stick with what we know. Don't try to make a case you can't make. It undermines our credibility.

I believe our credibility's been undermined by an attempt to make cases on nuclear, on weaponization, etcetera, that we couldn't sustain.

WOODRUFF: And just back on this whole question of what was in the State of the Union address, how are you going to satisfy yourself that the White House was not trying to mislead the American people?

BIDEN: I always give the president, even in the opposite party, the benefit of the doubt.

One of the things I find outrageous is, it's hard for me to believe the president of the United States of America, in a State of the Union message, would deliver a line that he knew not to be true, knowing that there were many people in this town knew it not to be true. That's why I'm prepared to believe that he didn't know, he, the president, didn't know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Joe Biden talking to us just a short time ago.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired July 11, 2003 - 15:12   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Democratic Senator Joe Biden is among those weighing in on the controversy over the president's State of the Union remarks about Iraqi efforts to get nuclear material. Given that the president told reporters today that his speech was cleared by U.S. intelligence services, I asked Senator Biden a short time ago if he thinks the CIA is going to take the fall for this controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: Well, it sure looks like that's what's being set up right now. And, again, I can't attest to whether it was or wasn't cleared by the intelligence services.

But I do know that Secretary Powell made a very powerful speech less than a week after the State of the Union at the United Nations. And he did not mention this, which would have been compelling evidence to mention at the U.N. So, maybe if they didn't know beforehand, this before the intelligence -- before the State of the Union, they apparently must have known between then and the secretary's speech, because he didn't use it.

And so my wonder is, why, when they found out that it wasn't true, why, in order to enhance our credibility as a nation, they didn't come out and say, look, we made a mistake on that, because there was plenty of reason to justify, in my view, going against Saddam Hussein, without the need for trying to make a case they reconstructed their nuclear capacity.

WOODRUFF: But, basically, the White House argument is that they're cleared of responsibility.

BIDEN: Well, I don't know what to say to that, Judy. I mean, how -- well, it doesn't seem logical to me.

Again, let me say it this way. Assume the president didn't know. And I'm prepared to believe him, that he didn't know that it was false and that the CIA, even though everybody else seemed to know it was false inside, we have now learned, said, no, go ahead and say it. It's OK. Why would Powell have not used the same evidence, making the case as to why there was an immediate danger with...

WOODRUFF: But the intelligence community is telling our reporters and others that they told the White House not to use this information.

BIDEN: That's what I'm told as well, Judy. I mean, this is he said/she said right now. I mean, I find it hard to believe that the intelligence community, at the point of the State of the Union, had not made somebody in the White House, whether it's the president or not, the national security adviser, somebody aware that this was not correct, unless they never saw the speech. But now you have the White House saying, Dr. Rice saying, they cleared the speech. I just don't understand it.

WOODRUFF: Well, the president himself is saying it.

BIDEN: I don't understand it, Judy.

Let's assume that the intelligence community is not telling the truth to you and others and that the president is absolutely accurate. Let's go beyond that. The day after the speech and the five or six or seven days between that speech and the very important speech the secretary of state made...

WOODRUFF: Right, right, I hear you, yes.

BIDEN: Nobody said -- why didn't the secretary of state use the same evidence?

WOODRUFF: What do you make of the information now coming out of London that Prime Minister Tony Blair's senior people are saying privately, they don't think weapons of mass destruction will ever be found in Iraq?

BIDEN: Well, that doesn't surprise me.

But let me tell you, Judy. I don't want to lose -- take our eye off the ball here. In 1998, UNSCOM, the U.N. inspectors made a report to the Security Council saying, this guy has X number of liters of V.X., anthrax, etcetera.

WOODRUFF: Right.

BIDEN: The whole world believed that to be the case. It was -- the burden was on Saddam to prove he didn't have those. That was sufficient justification as far back as July, Judy, if you take a look. And throughout, I have said repeatedly, don't exaggerate the evidence. Stick with what we know. Don't try to make a case you can't make. It undermines our credibility.

I believe our credibility's been undermined by an attempt to make cases on nuclear, on weaponization, etcetera, that we couldn't sustain.

WOODRUFF: And just back on this whole question of what was in the State of the Union address, how are you going to satisfy yourself that the White House was not trying to mislead the American people?

BIDEN: I always give the president, even in the opposite party, the benefit of the doubt.

One of the things I find outrageous is, it's hard for me to believe the president of the United States of America, in a State of the Union message, would deliver a line that he knew not to be true, knowing that there were many people in this town knew it not to be true. That's why I'm prepared to believe that he didn't know, he, the president, didn't know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Joe Biden talking to us just a short time ago.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com