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American Morning
Discussion with Senator Joe Biden
Aired November 04, 2003 - 08:06 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Despite mounting violence and calls for a change in post-war policy, the president says the U.S. will not be forced to withdraw from Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The enemy in Iraq believes America will run. That's why they're willing to kill innocent civilians, relief workers, coalition troops.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Senator Joe Biden says what's needed is more U.S. troops in Iraq and now.
Senator Biden with us live this morning from Wilmington, Delaware.
Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
Good to have you with us.
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you very much, Bill.
HEMMER: Tell me this, Senator, how would more U.S. troops on the ground immediately stop attacks like we saw on Sunday?
BIDEN: Well, you're not going to stop all attacks, Bill. But the first thing we have to do is win this war. The war is not over. That's why myself and John McCain and others have been calling for more troops from the day Saddam Hussein's statue fell in that square.
And, look, there's 650,000 tons of ammunition unguarded there. Your last reporter just said, and I wrote down his words, he said, "Those weapons have been allowed to be proliferated." Now, the reason they're allowed to be proliferated around the country is because there was no way to guard them.
We have to win this war, Bill. And it's obvious that we need more forces, either U.S. or real Iraqi forces trained up or coalition forces. And I think they should be NATO forces.
HEMMER: The converse of that argument says it takes time to move those troops, get them in the theater, get them up and running, get them familiar with the operation.
BIDEN: Sure.
HEMMER: About 90,000 Iraqis...
BIDEN: Hey, if we had started this the day...
HEMMER: There are about 90,000 Iraqis right now working on this --
BIDEN: If we had started this immediately we wouldn't be...
HEMMER: I'm sorry. There's a bit of a delay. I'll just finish my point and I'll let you talk.
BIDEN: I'm sorry. Make your point.
HEMMER: Ninety thousand Iraqi security forces right now on patrol. They say by the early part of next fall, that number will be well over 200,000. Why not wait until then? Or can the U.S. afford to wait?
BIDEN: The reason we're not to wait is those are not trained troops. When I was in Iraq not long ago they told us, our experts told us it would take us three years to train up 40,000 troops that were real, live troops. And it would take us more years than that to get to the 70,000 police forces we needed.
We need a gang that can shoot straight in there. That's why we should be willing to go back to our NATO friends, say, look, we'll give you more of the action in terms of determining outcome here. This must be a robust military presence here. And, look, what's happening now is as these attacks, which -- and, by the way, there's a lot going on that's very good in the country. But the heart of the country, if it's not functioning, then the appendages don't work very well.
And so what we have to do is convince the Iraqi people that this is not something we're losing. We have a very narrow window here to keep their support. And so we, it seems to me we should be, by whatever means we can now, using whatever force is available to us to "win the war now" while we build up these troops, so in the meantime we don't lose the support of not only the Iraqi people, but, quite frankly, the American people.
HEMMER: One of your colleagues, Senator Ernest Hollings, a Democrat out of South Carolina, talks about Operation Meat Grinder, a graphic description for what he says is happening right now to the U.S. men and women. He's calling for 100,000 to 150,000 more troops immediately. Is that realistic?
BIDEN: Well, I'm not sure exactly what's realistic. I'm sure a lot more is realistic. Here's my notion. The more we have in now to put out this -- to win this war, the fewer we have to have there longer. But if we let this drag on longer then the rub -- this is the opposite of the Powell doctrine. We have the Rumsfeld doctrine. As little as you can possibly do for as long as you can possibly do it instead of as much as you can do as quickly as you can do it and win the ground, win -- look, everybody -- Abizaid from the beginning, General Abizaid, a fine general, I mean telling us we don't need more troops and then telling us we have 650,000 tons of ammunition in depots we can't guard.
How do you square that? How do you square that?
HEMMER: One final thought here, something that has been talked about for a few weeks on our program. If Saddam Hussein is killed, how does the equation change in Iraq?
BIDEN: It immediately changes for -- it immediately changes for the better. We're beginning to wonder now and our intelligence people aren't at all sure whether Saddam Hussein or some of his significant generals remaining may be coordinating this. This is not about terror. This is more than about terror. This is about a leftover serious military personnel coordinating attacks using terror tactics against a stationery force, us.
We have to make it more than us. We have to be able to get in there and smother this. And it seems to me we have to do two things -- more American troops, train up Iraqis as rapidly as we can and get the international community in and stop acting like Iraq is some prize that we've won and we're not willing to share decisions about what it's going to look like down the road with our European friends for some reason that's beyond my comprehension.
HEMMER: Thank you, Senator.
Jim Boulden from Delaware.
BIDEN: Thank you.
HEMMER: Again, I apologize about the interruption. We'll get it dead on next time.
BIDEN: Oh, no, I was interrupting you.
HEMMER: Thank you very much.
BIDEN: No, I'm sorry for the delay.
HEMMER: Understood.
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 November 4, 2003 - 08:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Despite mounting violence and calls for a change in post-war policy, the president says the U.S. will not be forced to withdraw from Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The enemy in Iraq believes America will run. That's why they're willing to kill innocent civilians, relief workers, coalition troops.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Senator Joe Biden says what's needed is more U.S. troops in Iraq and now.
Senator Biden with us live this morning from Wilmington, Delaware.
Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
Good to have you with us.
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you very much, Bill.
HEMMER: Tell me this, Senator, how would more U.S. troops on the ground immediately stop attacks like we saw on Sunday?
BIDEN: Well, you're not going to stop all attacks, Bill. But the first thing we have to do is win this war. The war is not over. That's why myself and John McCain and others have been calling for more troops from the day Saddam Hussein's statue fell in that square.
And, look, there's 650,000 tons of ammunition unguarded there. Your last reporter just said, and I wrote down his words, he said, "Those weapons have been allowed to be proliferated." Now, the reason they're allowed to be proliferated around the country is because there was no way to guard them.
We have to win this war, Bill. And it's obvious that we need more forces, either U.S. or real Iraqi forces trained up or coalition forces. And I think they should be NATO forces.
HEMMER: The converse of that argument says it takes time to move those troops, get them in the theater, get them up and running, get them familiar with the operation.
BIDEN: Sure.
HEMMER: About 90,000 Iraqis...
BIDEN: Hey, if we had started this the day...
HEMMER: There are about 90,000 Iraqis right now working on this --
BIDEN: If we had started this immediately we wouldn't be...
HEMMER: I'm sorry. There's a bit of a delay. I'll just finish my point and I'll let you talk.
BIDEN: I'm sorry. Make your point.
HEMMER: Ninety thousand Iraqi security forces right now on patrol. They say by the early part of next fall, that number will be well over 200,000. Why not wait until then? Or can the U.S. afford to wait?
BIDEN: The reason we're not to wait is those are not trained troops. When I was in Iraq not long ago they told us, our experts told us it would take us three years to train up 40,000 troops that were real, live troops. And it would take us more years than that to get to the 70,000 police forces we needed.
We need a gang that can shoot straight in there. That's why we should be willing to go back to our NATO friends, say, look, we'll give you more of the action in terms of determining outcome here. This must be a robust military presence here. And, look, what's happening now is as these attacks, which -- and, by the way, there's a lot going on that's very good in the country. But the heart of the country, if it's not functioning, then the appendages don't work very well.
And so what we have to do is convince the Iraqi people that this is not something we're losing. We have a very narrow window here to keep their support. And so we, it seems to me we should be, by whatever means we can now, using whatever force is available to us to "win the war now" while we build up these troops, so in the meantime we don't lose the support of not only the Iraqi people, but, quite frankly, the American people.
HEMMER: One of your colleagues, Senator Ernest Hollings, a Democrat out of South Carolina, talks about Operation Meat Grinder, a graphic description for what he says is happening right now to the U.S. men and women. He's calling for 100,000 to 150,000 more troops immediately. Is that realistic?
BIDEN: Well, I'm not sure exactly what's realistic. I'm sure a lot more is realistic. Here's my notion. The more we have in now to put out this -- to win this war, the fewer we have to have there longer. But if we let this drag on longer then the rub -- this is the opposite of the Powell doctrine. We have the Rumsfeld doctrine. As little as you can possibly do for as long as you can possibly do it instead of as much as you can do as quickly as you can do it and win the ground, win -- look, everybody -- Abizaid from the beginning, General Abizaid, a fine general, I mean telling us we don't need more troops and then telling us we have 650,000 tons of ammunition in depots we can't guard.
How do you square that? How do you square that?
HEMMER: One final thought here, something that has been talked about for a few weeks on our program. If Saddam Hussein is killed, how does the equation change in Iraq?
BIDEN: It immediately changes for -- it immediately changes for the better. We're beginning to wonder now and our intelligence people aren't at all sure whether Saddam Hussein or some of his significant generals remaining may be coordinating this. This is not about terror. This is more than about terror. This is about a leftover serious military personnel coordinating attacks using terror tactics against a stationery force, us.
We have to make it more than us. We have to be able to get in there and smother this. And it seems to me we have to do two things -- more American troops, train up Iraqis as rapidly as we can and get the international community in and stop acting like Iraq is some prize that we've won and we're not willing to share decisions about what it's going to look like down the road with our European friends for some reason that's beyond my comprehension.
HEMMER: Thank you, Senator.
Jim Boulden from Delaware.
BIDEN: Thank you.
HEMMER: Again, I apologize about the interruption. We'll get it dead on next time.
BIDEN: Oh, no, I was interrupting you.
HEMMER: Thank you very much.
BIDEN: No, I'm sorry for the delay.
HEMMER: Understood.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
