2008 third presidential debate, in New York: on War & Peace

John McCain: Biden’s plan to partition Iraq was a cockamamie idea

McCAIN: I think that Joe Biden is qualified in many respects. But I do point out that he’s been wrong on many foreign policy and national security issues, which is supposed to be his strength.

He voted against the first Gulf War. He voted against it and, obviously, we had to take Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait or it would’ve threatened the Middle Eastern world supply.

In Iraq, he had this cockamamie idea about dividing Iraq into three countries. We’re seeing Iraq united as Iraqis, tough, hard, but we’re seeing them. We’re now about to have an agreement for status of forces in Iraq coming up.

There are several issues in which, frankly, Joe Biden and I open and honestly disagreed on national security policy, and he’s been wrong on a number of the major ones.

John McCain: FactCheck: Biden’s plan decentralized Iraq; not 3 countries

The Facts:Sen. Biden co-authored an opinion piece in The New York Times on May 1, 2006, that proposed a five-point plan “decentralizing” Iraq, greatly beset at the time by civil warfare between Shiites and Sunni Arabs.

The column likened Iraq’s sectarian woes to those in Bosnia [in which the] Dayton Accords kept Bosnia intact by “dividing it into ethnic federations, even allowing Muslims, Croats & Serbs to retain separate armies.“ The result was that Bosnians ”have lived a decade in relative peace.“ The proposal, which became known as the Biden-Gelb plan, generated attention in Washington & Baghdad, and the US Senate voted for a Biden amendment expressing support for a US-backed political settlement that would include a federal system.

The Verdict: False. Biden proposed decentralizing Iraq’s government, but not breaking up the country.