“We cannot afford another four years of Republican stewardship over our national security,” Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) said at the outset of his lengthy denunciation of the Bush Administration’s policies in Gaston Hall on Thursday.
Biden’s speech focused on the foreign policy challenges facing the next president, which he said were created by mistakes made by President Bush and his cabinet.
“They’ve dug us in a deep hole and left us few friends to help us climb out,” Biden said, referring to America’s reputation abroad.
The Senator said that the United States’ international influence has diminished because of the war in Iraq.
“We’ve squandered our ability to shape this new world,” he said.
Biden also criticized the way the war has been conducted, saying that it has drained resources from more pressing national security threats, such al-Qaeda safe havens in Afghanistan, and “opened Iraq’s door to Iran and al-Qaeda.”
“We know where al-Qaeda is,” Biden said. “We know where Osama bin Laden is. They’re not in Iraq.”
Biden said he believes that a continued American presence in Iraq has not helped the country get any closer to establishing a self-sustaining government. He would prefer to see a federal Iraqi state, with power devolved from the central government to regional governments, along with increased efforts to reconcile Iraqi warring factions, to expedite a U.S. withdrawal.
Criticizing the continued U.S. presence in Iraq as well as the “surge” of last year, Biden said that, in Iraq, the U.S. “has gone from drowning to treading water, and are no closer to the goal of an Iraq that can govern and sustain itself.”
Biden was also critical of fellow Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) for his plan for a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq, saying that it will perpetuate “conspiracy theories about America’s intentions in the Arab world that we should be working to dispel.” He added that McCain refuses to acknowledge “the increasing costs of staying in Iraq.”
