Biden Dives Down the Memory Hole
Posted:
11/1/07
Joe Biden runs into a bunch of school kids in the New Hampshire Statehouse who ask how the Iraq war started. He outlines how we got into Afghanistan to chase Bin Laden and how that was OK, then he moves to Iraq:
Joe, that war was about WMDs in the hands a madman who had invaded his neighbor and tried to assassinate a former US president. You know it. We know it.
There may have been confusion about whether Saddam had the WMDs. But that confusion was widespread. And you were a full partner in it. It was not created by Bush, nor even by CIA incompetence. It was believed by English, Russian, French and German intelligence. It derived, most likely, from Saddam's perverse desire to create the impression that he had those weapons, and it is also quite probable that some of those weapons jumped the border to Syria, which obviously enjoys playing with such toys.
It is a natural human instinct to blame things on others when they go poorly and take credit when they go well. But getting away with it is easier when you don't have the paper trail of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair. Or ... when you are talking to kids who were still watching Sesame Street when the events occurred.
Stop! Rewind! Iraq was based on bin Laden connections, not WMDs? What way, way far away universe did this Joe Biden teleport in from? Or is this the same Joe Biden, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who voted to authorize the Iraq war and said on its eve, "One thing is clear: These weapons must be must be dislodged from Saddam, or Saddam must be dislodged from power"?"But the president, I think, he got a little confused," he continued. "I think he thought the folks in another country, way, way far away, far from here, it's also far from Afghanistan, called Iraq. He said, 'The guy in Iraq he helped bin Laden do bad things to us,' and he didn't. He wasn't a good guy, but he didn't help. So we used that kind of as an excuse to attack Iraq."
Joe, that war was about WMDs in the hands a madman who had invaded his neighbor and tried to assassinate a former US president. You know it. We know it.
There may have been confusion about whether Saddam had the WMDs. But that confusion was widespread. And you were a full partner in it. It was not created by Bush, nor even by CIA incompetence. It was believed by English, Russian, French and German intelligence. It derived, most likely, from Saddam's perverse desire to create the impression that he had those weapons, and it is also quite probable that some of those weapons jumped the border to Syria, which obviously enjoys playing with such toys.
It is a natural human instinct to blame things on others when they go poorly and take credit when they go well. But getting away with it is easier when you don't have the paper trail of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair. Or ... when you are talking to kids who were still watching Sesame Street when the events occurred.