Joe Biden

On the Iraq War

"What we have here, I argue, as the rationale for going after Saddam, is that he signed a cease-fire agreement. The condition for his continuing in power was the elimination of his weapons of mass destruction, and the permission to have inspectors in to make sure he had eliminated them. He expelled those inspectors. So he violated the cease-fire; ergo, we have authority--not under a doctrine of preemption. This will not be a preemptive strike, if we go with the rest of the world. It will be an enforcement strike." (10/10/2002, Senate hearing on Authorizing Force in Iraq) [1] [2]

“Secretary Powell made a powerful and irrefutable case today before the UN Security Council. The evidence he produced confirms what many of us already know - that Saddam continues to flout the world’s demand that he disarm." (2/5/2003) [3]

MR. RUSSERT: I want to go back to 2002, because it’s important as to what people were saying then and what the American people were hearing. Here’s Joe Biden about Saddam Hussein: “He’s a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security.” “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.” “He must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power.” You were emphatic about that.

SEN. BIDEN: That’s right, and I was correct about that. He must be, in fact—and remember the weapons we were talking about. I also said on your show, that’s part of what I said, but not all of what I meant. What I also said on your show at the time was that I did not think he had weaponized his material, but he did have. When, when the inspectors left after Saddam kicked them out, there was a cataloguing at the United Nations saying he had X tons of, X amount of, and they listed the various materials he had. The big issue, remember, on this show we talked about, was whether he had weaponized them. Remember you asked me about those flights that were taking place in southern Iraq, where—were they spraying anthrax? And, you know, what would happen? And, you know, so on and so forth. And I pointed out to you that they had not developed that capacity at all. But he did have these stockpiles everywhere.

MR. RUSSERT: Where are they?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, the point is, it turned out they didn’t, but everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them. He catalogued—they catalogued them. This was not some, some Cheney, you know, pipe dream. This was, in fact, catalogued. They looked at them and catalogued. What he did with them, who knows? The real mystery is, if he, if he didn’t have any of them left, why didn’t he say so? Well, a lot of people say if he had said that, he would’ve, you know, emboldened Iran and so on and so forth. ...

MR. RUSSERT: But when you read the national intelligence estimate, which has now been released, there’re a lot of caveats put on the level of intelligence about the aluminum tubes and...

SEN. BIDEN: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: General Zinni, who’s been on this program a few weeks ago, said that when he heard the discussion about the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had, he said, “I’ve never heard that” in any of the briefings he had as head of the Central Command. How could you as a U.S. senator be so wrong?

SEN. BIDEN: I, I wasn’t wrong. I was on your show when you asked me about aluminum tubes, and I said they’re for artillery. I don’t believe they’re for cascading.

MR. RUSSERT: But you said Saddam was a threat. He had to be...

SEN. BIDEN: He was a threat.

MR. RUSSERT: In what way?

SEN. BIDEN: The threat he presented was that, if Saddam was left unfettered, which I said during that period, for the next five years with sanctions lifted and billions of dollars into his coffers, then I believed he had the ability to acquire a tactical nuclear weapon—not by building it, by purchasing it. ...

MR. RUSSERT: You were asked on this program a few months after the invasion of May of ‘03 about your vote. And you said, “There was sufficient evidence to go into Iraq.” And then in ‘04 you said—a year and a half ago—“I voted to give the president the authority to use force in Iraq. I still believe my vote was just.” Then you went to Iowa in ‘07, running for president and said, “It was a mistake. I regret my vote.”

SEN. BIDEN: That’s unfair. I said that on your program it was a mistake between, and you make it sound like I went to Iowa and all of a sudden I had people out there saying Biden is...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, there was a change in your thinking from, from being...

SEN. BIDEN: No...

(4/29/2007, Meet the Press: Meet the Candidate, Sen. Joe Biden) [4]

Vote on the authorization of the use of force in Iraq

Biden voted yes on the authorization of the use of force in Iraq

On the Patriot Act

Biden has taken credit on numerous occasions for writing the Patriot Act. He said: "Almost the same thing that got passed, the Patriot Act, was introduced by me in 1994, and it was the right-wing that defeated it." 2002 [[5]]