The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee has his own answer to
Baker-Hamilton on Iraq.
November
27, 2006
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware is poised
to retake the chairmanship of the influential Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in January, after the
new Democrat-controlled Congress is sworn in. Biden
discussed his plans for stabilizing Iraq by creating
a federal system of three autonomous regions—Kurd,
Shiite and Sunni—and for addressing Iran’s nuclear
program, among other issues, in an interview with
NEWSWEEK’s Michael Hirsh. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: I understand you’re planning to hold
hearings on Iraq in January as your first act as
chairman.
Joseph Biden: I am. We’re putting it together now.
It will probably amount to six weeks of hearings.
We’ll have experts who are left, right and center,
neocons, internationalists and isolationists, to
come in and dissect the various elements of our Iraq
policy. For example, the never-examined premise upon
which we say we’re going to stand up Iraqis and
stand down ourselves. It’s not a question of getting
them to stand up; it’s getting them to stand
together … I’ve gone back and looked at hearings
from the past to get some sense of how this is done
from a historical perspective. We’re going to try to
do something that is sound. |
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden
Photo:Reuters |
|
Q: Will the hearings examine the report of the Iraq
Study Group being co-chaired by former secretary of
State James Baker and former House member Lee
Hamilton, which is expected to be out by then?
Biden: I think that’s only part of it. It depends on
whether Baker and Hamilton remain relevant. I’ve
asked Baker and Hamilton to appear, along with
former secretaries of State and Defense and other
officials.
Q: Will you produce your own, separate report with a
set of recommendations?
Biden: That’s one of the things we’re considering.
Q: Senator, how would you address the problem of
Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric, who may be the
most powerful and dangerous man in Iraq today, and
his militia, the so-called Mahdi Army?
Biden: There are three elements to thinking about
Sadr. First, dealing with Sadr’s aberrations
directly. Making it clear to [Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-] Maliki that he had better not tell our
military that we can’t respond specifically to Mahdi
Army attacks on our forces. This is why
federalization is so critical. That’s the second
element. That will have the healthy effect of
forcing Sadr to compete for territory within his own
region. When the Iraqis were debating federalism in
the Parliament, the only people who voted against
the implementing legislation were Sadr’s bloc and
the Sunnis. Why would that be? Sadr knows that if
there were a larger Sunni region in the center, a
Kurdistan and a Shia region in the south then he
becomes marginalized within the pool in which he has
to swim. He has to deal with the Badr Brigade [a
rival Shia militia.] He has to deal with the two
major political parties in there for ascendancy.
Read the constitution. So few people have read those
actual portions. If you have federal system you get
local police control. That’s what this is about. The
third piece is what I would be doing to make sure
elements of genuine Iraqi military are in place.
There are 10 divisions now; five are serious, five
are not. What we should do is give the central
government the power vet and turn that army into a
real army.
Ultimately the central government has to have
ability to control them. What we’re doing now, we’re
not separating out the militia. Number one, we’re
not going into a full blown vetting operation … When
people criticize my plan, I say, "Do you think in
the next 10 years there is any likelihood that no
matter how well trained Iraqi police are that people
in the Sunni region will allow Shia police to roam
in their territory or that Kurds will allow the
Sunnis to do so?" About 930,000 people have
self-ethnic cleansed already.
Q: What are the prospects for John Bolton, the
controversial U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
to be confirmed in your committee?
Biden: Bolton’s gone. These guys have got to get
real. They can’t even get him out of a
Republican-led committee. All they keep floating is
the prospect that they’re going to come up with a
construct to keep him there—make him a deputy [which
wouldn’t require Senate confirmation] but not send
anybody else up. I wish they’d grow up.
Q: What should President Bush do about Iran and its
nuclear program, now that it seems Tehran has
successfully divided the United States, Europe and
Russia on the issue of sanctions in the U.N.
Security Council? Does he need to move to broad
direct talks that will link up the nuclear and Iraq
issues, among others?
Biden: I think he’s going to end up talking to Iran
because he has no alternative. The terms [of the
talks] should be wide open. This administration
spends too much time arguing over the shape of the
table. They don’t get anything done. But guessing
what this administration is going to do is like
reading the entrails of goats in ancient times. I
think this is the gang that can’t shoot straight.
newsweek com
Top |
® 