Joe Biden in Joe Biden biography by Jules Witcover
On Budget & Economy:
1996: Accused of sweetheart deal on sale of personal home
Charges of conflict of interest came up in Biden's 1996 bid for election to a fifth term in the Senate. Biden's opponent alleged Biden had been given a sweetheart deal on the sale of his home in Wilmington to a top MBNA executive. The implication was
that Biden had been given a hefty profit in exchange for, or expectation of, favorable treatment regarding legislation of interest to the huge credit card company. The Biden campaign immediately cried foul and flatly denied the allegation & implication.
Details of the deal were quickly turned over to the Delaware press, including records establishing that the appraised value and the price paid by the buyer were approximately the same. Biden received $1.2 million for the large wooded estate property;
Biden had bought the property in 1975 for $225,000 and had made substantial improvements. Together with the intervening climb in real estate values, they more than accounted for the huge but legitimate increase.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.295-296
Oct 5, 2010
On Civil Rights:
1976: Opposed school busing to combat segregation
[In 1968, Biden] flatly opposed school busing to combat segregation, calling it "a phony issue which allows the white liberals to sit in suburbia, confident that they are not going to have to live next to blacks."While Biden agreed that busing was
warranted to combat segregation by law as imposed in the Deep South, he was against busing to deal with de facto segregation based on residential patterns, as was the case in Delaware.
In 1975 he introduced and won Senate approval of two anti-busing
amendments. Busing, he wrote, "was a liberal train wreck, and it was tearing people apart." Biden was categorical: "I oppose busing. It's an asinine concept, the utility of which has never been proven to me." He made the distinction between de jure
integration, required by a court order to end segregation, to which he acquiesced, and de facto integration, motivated by a desire to alter the racial composition of a school absent a court order, which HEW espoused and Biden strenuously opposed.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by J. Witcover, p. 75&81&134-5
Oct 5, 2010
On Civil Rights:
Inalienable rights cannot be denied by any majority
[At the Supreme Court hearings in 1987, Biden challenged Bork's basic argument tof enumerated rights in the Constitution, saying, "I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived
from the Constitution. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity."His concerns [about Bork] touched
on "the relationship of people of different races in our land; whether it was wrong for state courts to enforce covenants that prohibited black couples from buying homes in white neighborhoods; whether the court was wrong in allowing literacy tests in
voting; and whether in the future the Court will intervene to protect the rights of the races.." Biden listed other privacy rights: in marriage, in child-raising, in having private schools; above all in freedom of expression in politics and the arts.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.199-200
Oct 5, 2010
On Crime:
1970: DE Public not receiving needed police protection
Joe also set himself up early as a crime fighter and defender of the police. In August 1970, when the New Castle County police released the latest statistics showing a 35 percent increase in major crime in the first six months of the year, candidate
Biden accused the Republican-led county officials of "a deplorable lack of leadership," saying the public was "not receiving the police protection to which they are entitled" despite a
17 percent increase in the budget for that purpose.
He proposed a four-point program that included an expanded police criminal division and the hiring of a full-time police director to achieve better cooperation between county and state police.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p. 58
Oct 5, 2010
On Crime:
1990 crime bill: more police & tougher penalties
Biden championed more community policing and spent long hours and days immersing himself in law enforcement culture, frequently attending and addressing police organization meetings. And in a pending crime bill in 1990,
Biden fought for more money for police departments, for a ban on assault weapons, and for tougher penalties for drug offenders, the bill was watered down by Republican opposition. Finally, in 1994 Congress passed a $30.2 billion Violent Crime
Control and Law Enforcement Act, sometimes known simply as the Biden Crime bill, which called for one hundreg thousand more police in the nation's city streets over six years. The measure won strong political support for the Democrats and
President Clinton from a police community that earlier had considered the Republicans as the law-and-order party. Biden ballyhooed the Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program as reducing crime for eight straight years, from 1993 through 2001.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.306-307
Oct 5, 2010
On Drugs:
1988: Crafted new law creating national Drug Czar
In 1988, the major drug bill he had spent years crafting became law. Included was the creation of a national drug czar, a key Biden objective and a job that went to Republican William Bennett. Biden vowed to be Capital Hill's point man in pressing the
new Bush administration on antidrug spending and helping Bennett navigate his way through a thorny bureaucratic thicket of multiple congressional jurisdictions. When Pres. Bush announced his 1989 antidrug plan, Biden showed no hesitation in criticizing
him for not finding initiatives already on the books. He called for higher taxes on cigarettes and tobacco (neither of which he ever used) to pay for them. Biden unleashed his old fire: "Mr. President, you say you want a war on drugs, but if that's what
you want we need another D-Day. Instead you're giving us another Vietnam--a limited war fought on the cheap, financed on the sly, with no clear objectives, and ultimately destined for stalemate and human tragedy."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.241-242
Oct 5, 2010
On Drugs:
1990 crime bill: tougher penalties for drug offenders
From Judiciary, Biden responded to growing reports of police brutality on the one hand and inadequate law enforcement on the other in an era of heavy drug trafficking. Even before he became the
Judiciary chairman, he had called for creation of a national drug czar to cope with the growing flood of narcotics into the American market. For years, Biden had been pushing for the creation of a drug czar, and when
Ronald Reagan appointed William Bennett as his drug czar, Biden worked with him coordinating the various governmental agency budgets dealing with narcotics. And in a pending crime bill in 1990,
Biden fought for tougher penalties for drug offenders, the bill was watered down by Republican opposition.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.306-307
Oct 5, 2010
On Environment:
1970s: Push to prohibit refineries, to protect state beaches
In the 1970s, when Shell Oil bought up more than five thousand acres of shore property near the town of Delaware City, just south of New Castle, with plans to build a new refinery, he raised concerns about raw sewage and other population threats.
While he favored job creation opportunities, he was in no mood to approve corporate free rides. "Let Shell prove to us they won't ruin our environment," he would say, and if the oil giant couldn't do so, "we'll rezone them right out of here."
He introduced a rezoning ordinance aimed at blocking another refinery on farmland at Smyrna, farther south, but at the same time called for a hearing delay until Sell could mount its own case for the project.
A council staff member recalled that "a lot of his opposition led to enactment of a state law prohibiting having industrial development including refineries," to protect Delaware's beaches, a major tourist attraction.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p. 62
Oct 5, 2010
On Families & Children:
1991: VAWA is about civil rights, not divorce law
Biden understood "the lack of control that is experienced not only by women who are themselves victims but by all the women who have to constrain their daily activities to avoid being a victim." He showed the basic insight of the civil rights provision--
that violence against women deprives women of equality."In 1991 Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed a four-judge committee to appraise the push for a Violence Against Women Act. It challenged classifying such violence as a civil
rights offense and warned that the federal caseload might be so increased as to cause "major state-federal jurisdictional problems and disruptions."
Biden angrily wrote to the committee: "The bill does not federalize divorce law or domestic relations
cases any more than any other civil rights law does." But Rehnquist wrote that the bill "is so open-ended and the new private right of action so sweeping that the legislation would involve the federal courts in a host of domestic relations disputes."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.312-313
Oct 5, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
1986: Strict sanctions against South African apartheid
On the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden unleashed an uncommonly sharp tongue in July 1986, accusing mild-mannered Secretary of State George Shulz of softening economic sanctions against South Africa for its policy of apartheid. "We ask them to put up
a timetable [for remedial action]," he thundered, waiving a fist. "What is our timetable? Where do we stand morally? I hate to hear an administration and a secretary of state refusing to act on a morally abhorrent point.
I'm ashamed of this country that puts out a policy like this that says nothing, nothing. I'm ashamed of the lack of moral backbone to this policy." The diplomatic Shulz countered "What we want is a society that they all can live in together. So I don't
turn my back on the whites and I would hope that you wouldn't." Biden countered grandly: "I speak for the oppressed, whatever they may be." To many, Biden was discourteously browbeating the secretary of state and tooting his own horn in the process.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.164
Oct 5, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
1990: Predicted that Soviet Union would cease to exist
Appropriately, he spoke in his declaration of candidacy of his worldview, predicting that "long before the Senate term I seek now is over, the Soviet Union as the world has known it for seventy years will cease to exist."
In the 1990 Senate race, Biden was no longer the unpolished kid candidate taking on the giant incumbent as in 1972, but now the familiar, seasoned and worldly Senate man and national figure.
Biden's vision, his confident presence was more than enough to draw a telling difference between himself and his opponent.
He prophesized that it would dissolve into separate and independent nations, possibly in a loose confederation. Whether or not listeners believed
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.245
Oct 5, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
New World Order should not mean US fights for the UN
Kuwait, with a January 15 deadline. Biden expressed concern that the president had changed and broadened his foreign policy goals in the Middle East. "We talk about a New World Order," he said, "A
Resolution 678 authorized member states "to use all necessary means" to force compliance with the UN demands for Iraq's withdrawal from
You go get them; we give you the authority to do it.' That is the essence of that New World Order. That is not a New World Order I am prepared to sign on to."
New World Order in the United Nations and collective security adds up to 'We will hold your coat, United States.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.249-250
Oct 5, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
Nation-building can prevent full-scale military actions
Biden in January 2001 returned to Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia and called for continued American troop and reconstruction efforts. Writing in the New York Times, he said, "We must make clear that our security umbrella and economic
assistance will continue only if Bosnia breaks free from the stranglehold of its three nationalist parties. The fact is, nation-building, if done well, can prevent vastly more expensive full-scale military actions."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.331
Oct 5, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
First VP speech: Refute Bush's unilateralist foreign policy
Biden's new role as a major administration spokesman on both domestic and foreign policy began. Barely two weeks in office, Obama sent him to Munich to make the administration's first prominent speech on foreign affairs, at an annual
European security conference. In a direct refutation of the Bush unilateralist foreign policy, Biden said, "I come to Europe on behalf of a new administration determined to set a new tone not only in Washington but in
America's relations around the world" that would "work in a partnership whenever we can, and alone only when we must." He said his country henceforth would "strive to act preventatively, nor preemptively" to avoid use of force "to stop crises
from occurring before they are in front of us, starting with diplomacy. And he reached out to the NATO partners and Russia to give more to the effort to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.446-447
Oct 5, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
Condemned 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem
In Feb. 2010, Biden had just completed a rousing speech in Jerusalem and had vowed "absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israeli security" when the Israeli interior ministry announced that 1,600 new housing units would be built in East Jerusalem.
The ministry said the decision had been 3 years in the making, had nothing to do with Biden's arrival. Biden immediately condemned the decision in scathing terms, calling it "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now."
Biden thereupon delayed his arrival as a demonstration of his disapproval. The next day Biden went on to the Palestinian Territory. There he told Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the latest Israeli decision "undermined that very trust that we need
right now in order to have profitable negotiations," and was "why I immediately condemned the action." He said his criticism came "at the request of Pres. Obama," which drew applause, addition that "sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.470-471
Oct 5, 2010
On Government Reform:
1973: Senators deserve more than $42,000 salary
In the Senate, without challenging Jesse Helms's motives, he didn't hesitate to square off against him over the issue of a Senate pay raise.
Biden said he didn't disagree in terms of economic conditions that it might not be the best time, but he took issue with what he say as Helms's argument that the senators didn't deserve more than their 42K annual salary.
Biden himself pointedly had no stock investments, as most others did, and he empathized with colleagues who had to maintain two homes, one in their state and one in Washington, although he himself had no residence in the capital.
In floor debate, Biden argued," It seems to me that she would flat out tell the American people we are worth are salt."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.113-114
Oct 5, 2010
On Government Reform:
1987: Bork fight changed rules of nomination process
In the 1987 Bork nomination, Biden wrote later, "I had to reset the table on the nomination process, which had focused almost solely on character and qualifications. Robert Bork was a bona fide scholar. The way to stop was on the question of his
outside-the-mainstream judicial philosophy--or ideology--and that was a long shot, too."The basic understanding was that as long as a Supreme Court nominee had the intellectual capacity, a breadth of experience in constitutional law, and a reasonable
judicial temperament, the Senate was bound to confirm a nominee. Ideology was the third rail of Supreme Court nominations.
Biden wrote that in the toughest confirmation cases in the 1960s, the nominees "were rejected for personal shortcomings, but the
clear and unspoken reason was ideology. I thought it was time to take up ideology in the open and avoid personal attacks." In a major speech on the Senate floor, Biden cited specific precedents in which ideology had been the deciding factor.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.181-182
Oct 5, 2010
On Homeland Security:
1979: Met with Soviet leaders about SALT II Treaty
conditions adopted by the Senate. For three hours in the Kremlin, he matched wits with Brezhnev and Premier Alexei Kosygin. In the long exchange, Biden wrote, "I did manage to get an unspoken assurance from him that the Soviets would likely accede to
In the summer of 1979, with Senate ratification of the SALT II Treaty signed by Carter and Brezhnev in peril, the president asked Biden to lead a delegation of six young senators to Moscow seeking assurances that the Soviet leaders would abide by new
the treaty modifications the Senate had under consideration. The Soviets wanted the treaty passed, too." In the end, however, after Biden's best efforts to sell ratification, it fell short in the Senate. Nevertheless, when Ronald Reagan won the White
House in 1980, his administration informally complied with the SALT II limits. When in 1986, he threatened to abandon them, Biden along with Republican Senator William Cohen of Maine proposed legislation to prevent him from doing so.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.318-319
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1966: Required to retake law school course for plagiarism
Young Biden slid into a situation that much later would have damaging consequences to his career. As he described it in the memoir: "About six weeks into the first term I botched a paper in a technical writing course so badly that one of my classmates
accused me of lifting passages from a Fordham Law Review article; I had cited the article, but not properly. The truth was, I hadn't been to class enough to know how to do citations in a legal brief. The deans and professors were satisfied that I had not
intentionally cheated, but they told me I'd have to retake the course the next year." A classmate remembered Joe coming up to him one day and declaring: "You're not going to believe what just happened. They accused me of plagiarism!" the whole incident
was soon forgotten after Biden retook the course in question and passed it the second time around--forgotten, that is, until it resurfaced years later in a manner that shook Biden's political ambitions to the core.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p. 41-42
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1973: Base Nixon's resignation on violations, not politics
The controversy dragged on, until the tape bearing the famous "smoking gun" made clear that Nixon had been aware and privy to payoffs to the Watergate burglars for their silence. Biden joined the chorus of demands that the president resign or be
[In the 1973 Watergate hearings], Biden continued to caution his fellow Democrats, and the press, to proceed in a way that would assure Nixon a fair hearing that would not in any way jeopardize the ultimate administration of justice in the matter.
trust of that office to such a degree as to warrant his forcible or voluntary removal from that office. His resignation was not the consequence of political pressures, but solely as a consequence of a violation of that high public trust."
impeached, stating "For the sake of history, the issue must not be confused. The issue is not how well President Nixon conducted foreign policy over the past five and a half years, but whether the President of the United States violated high public
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.118-119
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1987: Clarion call: rekindle fires of idealism
With all preparations for running in place, and about $2 million in his campaign treasury, Joe Biden on 6/9/87 kicked off his bid for the White House at the Wilmington railroad station that had been a regular venue in his political life during his
14 years in the US Senate. In JFK-like urgings to get America moving again after the Republican "self-aggrandizement" years of Nixon, Ford and Reagan, he told the hometown crowd: "We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society,
for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference." And he reiterated his argument that it was time for youth to be served. "I am absolutely convinced that this generation is poised to respond to this challenge,
and for my part this is the issue upon which I will stake my candidacy," he said. "The clarion call for my generation is not "It's our turn," But rather "It's our moment of obligation and opportunity.'"
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.169
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1987: Anti-Bork most organized opposition to Court nominee
As Judiciary Chair in 1987, Biden found himself in the middle of pressures from all these intense anti-Bork foot soldiers, demanding to testify at the confirmation hearings. The political reality was that Biden could not pick & choose without incurring
the undying enmity of those who were denied. It had to be none, [or] (virtually) all. No one publically insisted upon testifying. And at the close of the hearings, Bork and his flawed constitutional vision--and not the coalition--remained at center stage
The massive compilation came to be known within the coalition as "The Book of Bork" and was widely circulated among members of the Senate, the news media, and every group with an interest in rejecting the nomination. Biden himself underwent intensive pre
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.177-179
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1987: Accused of plagiarizing Neil Kinnock's speech
A British Labour Party candidate, Neil Kinnock, delivered a speech in his recent election campaign [in which he] talked of the political opportunities that had come to him as a result of the helping hand they had received along the way. It struck a chord
with Biden, reminding him of his own fortunes.Kinnock said of his predecessors, "Anybody really think they didn't get what we have because they didn't have the talent, or the endurance, or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no
platform upon which they could stand."
That last phrase particularly captured Biden's attention. At the Iowa debate, the campaign hadn't prepared closing remarks. An aide suggested, "Why don't you use the Kinnock stuff?"
Biden closed with, "Why is it
that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to university? Were they not smart? Were they weak? No, they didn't have a platform on which to stand." He hadn't made the attribution to Kinnock that he usually did. [Newspapers called it plagiarism].
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.186-189
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1987: Heckled for exaggerating academic record
In his 1987 president bid, Biden was caught by a C-SPAN camera telling a tormenter, "I went to law school on a full scholarship, the only one in my class to have an academic scholarship. In the first year, I decided I didn't want to be in law school and
ended up in the bottom 2/3 of my class and then I decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school and ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot court competition."Biden also claimed that at University of Delaware he had
finished with three undergraduate degrees. His law school records showed, however, that in his first year at Syracuse he was ranked 80th out of 100 students and in his final year 76th out of 85. Also, his full academic scholarship was half based on need,
and rather than three undergraduate degrees, he earned one with a dual major in history and political science. Also, he had shared the moot court award with other students. Biden recalled later of his presidential campaign, "The floodgate had opened."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.194-195
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
2008: I would not be anyone's V.P. nor Secretary of State
In 2008, Biden was apparently everybody's choice to be secretary of state. Asked about it, he was emphatic: "Absolutely, positively, inequitably, Shermanesquely, no. I will not be anybody's secretary of state in any circumstance I can think of.
And I absolutely can say with certainty I would not be anybody's vice president, period. End of story. I guarantee I will not do it.""If we have a Democratic president," he said, "I can have much more influence, I promise you, as chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee than I can as vice president." And he laughed, walking off to rejoin his family and get back to Wilmington. For most of the nation's history, the vice presidency had been avoided like a plague by most ambitious politicians.
More often than not, especially in the first hundred years of the Republic, the office was regarded as a dead end, a sort of gold watch in retirement.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.389-394
Oct 5, 2010
On Principles & Values:
1973: Reconsidered priesthood after losing wife in car crash
Biden recalled his thoughts in the depth of his despair and depression about the loss of [his wife and child in a car crash] was to reconsider the idea of becoming a priest. He went to the local Catholic bishop "about getting a dispensation. In the
Catholic Church you could get married and have lost your spouse and have children, and you can get a dispensation to go to the priesthood. I didn't ask him to get it, I asked if he could, would he, etc., and he said, 'Look,
Joe, why don't you take a year to think about this? I don't think this is the right thing for you, but if you still want to do that, I will initiate the procedure.' I never followed up on it. It was the only other thing I ever thought about, but it was
obvious I didn't have the vocation or I would have done it." So began what soon would be a familiar daily sight to train passengers on the run between New York and Washington, in both directions--the Amtrak life of Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.98-99
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
1971: Campaigned on wanting Vietnam War over
who had died in a war we simply couldn't understand. But I think it was the fact that the campaign was run by his family. My specific job was to contact each high school in the state so we could get Joe into the classrooms. Whether it was speaking to a
[One supporter] later wrote that his recruitment into the Biden Children's Crusade was spurred because "Joe said he wanted the Vietnam War over. That was a biggie for my gang in 1971. Most of us were 17 and 18 and already had friends or knew of someone
an opportunity to have our voices heard in a wartime atmosphere that had set the generations at odds. Joe says, 'We've got an issue with Vietnam today, and the young people are concerned. I'm organizing all the young people in the state of Delaware.'"
single civics class or to an entire auditorium of students, he began to excite and inspire young people by the thousands. No one had ever really asked young people to get involved before, not at this level. It seemed more like a movement than a campaign,
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p. 63-64
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
No vital interest in Kuwait in 1990; like Vietnam in 1972
playing into the hands of Ho Chi Minh where we disagreed [with administration policy]. Now I hear today we are unknowingly playing into the hands of Saddam Hussein. Boy, oh boy," Biden said in his folksy way, "Here we go again." In another apparent
Biden questioned what American vital interest was involved in the [Iraq War] objective, noting that the same question had been raised in the Vietnam War. "I came to the Senate in 1972," he said, "because I was so tired of hearing that we were unknowingly
resumed his argument for more time to allow the sanctions to break Saddam's will. "Before we ask Americans to die for the liberation of Kuwait, I would like to be sure we have tried every possible alternative. So far, this has not been the case."
analogy to Vietnam, he added that no one had "laid out clearly what our vital interests are sufficient to have 10 thousand, 20 thousand, 30 thousand, 40 thousand Americans killed. I have not heard that one yet. A week before the UN deadline, Biden
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.249-250
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
1990: One man deciding to go to war is tyranny
simply was no time for extensive debate before using force, lest the element of surprise would be lost. Biden said, "[That] has been shown to be a red herring by the UN resolution, at least in this case." Biden readily conceded one argument to the
Biden [disagreed that] a president could constitutionally declare and wage war without explicit congressional approval. He offered a vigorous insistence on Congress's role. Biden disagreed with the argument that in modern warfare in the nuclear age there
unfettered choice to decide by himself whether we could go to war or not go to war, and we launched a revolution to free ourselves from the tyranny of such a system. He was one of only ten Senate Democrats in opposition as the vote narrowly passed.
other side. "Finally, we have been told that the congressional debate on war could tie the president's hands or limit his discretion. To this charge I have one simple response: Exactly right. Americans once lived under a system where one man had
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.251
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
1992: lift Bosnian arms embargo; NATO air strikes on Serbs
As accounts of shocking atrocities came to Biden's attention, including reports of massive murder camps run by the Serb Yugoslav army, with Clinton assuming the presidency in early 1993, Biden pushed for lifting the arms embargo to give the
Bosnians the means of defending themselves. Biden also called for NATO air strikes on Serb positions encircling Bosnian cities. In a meeting, Milosevic began by informing Biden that he had the wrong idea of what was going on in his country, pointing
out places where the Serbs were being attacked by the Muslims and Croats. "I told him the whole world knew who was doing the attacking, and it was up to him to stop it," Biden wrote. "He was still calm. And he lied to my face. Biden wrote in his
memoir, "Milosevic could tell I had just about had it with his lies, and at one point he looked up from the maps and said, without any emotion, 'What do you think of me?'" Biden said he replied: "I think you're a damn war criminal."
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.322-323
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
9/11: Urged Bush to stay in public, like DeGaulle in WWII
On 9/11 Biden called for calm, saying Congress would be going back into session soon and he had heard that the president was "coming back to Washington, and I applaud him for that." Pres. Bush called Biden to commend him for "saying the right things."
Biden asked Bush where he was, and was told: "I'm on Air Force One, heading to an undisclosed location in the Midwest." Biden said he urged the president to return to Washington. "I said, 'Mr. President, don't do that. Come home.
Let everybody see you.'" But Bush said his security people would not permit it.Later, Biden told how, after WWII, General Charles de Gaulle was in Paris when suddenly a sniper started firing at him. Everyone ducked or ran "except Charles de Gaulle.
He kept marching, head erect and high. He did not flinch. That one defiant act rallied a nation." Biden said he had tried to get the Senate leaders to call the senators back into session to make the same demonstration, to no avail.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.337-338
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
2002: Iraq pivots from unfinished business in Afghanistan
In 2002, Biden flew to Afghanistan, as mopping-up operations continued. What Biden heard from all quarters were pleas for more of everything--money, troops, security--and a commitment for the US presence to remain, at least until circumstances greatly
improved. Biden returned conveying a plea for urgent help, and Powell joined it, but while Bush "was agreeable and willing to listen, he was also noncommittal," Biden wrote later. Though Bush talked of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, he had other
ideas, and was already giving Cheney and Rumsfeld "the force and resources they requested for a new target"--Iraq.
By now it was becoming increasingly clear to Biden that a critical pivot was under way from the unfinished business in Afghanistan to the
neoconservatives' vision of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East, starting with deposing Saddam Hussein.
Biden and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel introduced a bill providing more money for Afghanistan, but the administration opposed it.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.340-342
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
2008: Afghanistan is forgotten war, & Pakistan is neglected
Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in late February 2008, he flew to Afghanistan, India, Turkey and Pakistan on a fact-finding tour. Afterward, Biden labeled Afghanistan "the forgotten war" and
Pakistan "the neglected frontier," calling for a fresh look at the former and more economic aid for the latter. Afghanistan, he said, was "slipping toward failure because it has never been given a priority" as the war in Iraq dragged on.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.405
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
Not necessary to defeat Taliban; it's part of Afghan society
I wrote to the president, a long, 20-page handwritten memo focused on making the case:- that this is a 3-dimensional problem--al Qaeda, Pakistan and Afghanistan;
- that there be a limit on the number of troops so that this wouldn't be a constant,
creeping escalation whatever troop level was announced;
- that there be a date at which we would begin the drawdown of American forces with the aim of drawing down all combat forces out, a la Iraq;
- that it was not necessary to defeat the
Taliban because the Taliban was and is part of the fabric of the Pashtun society--20% to 30% of it is incorrigible and must be defeated, and the remainder should be integrated into Afghan society;
- that the return of the ability of the Taliban
to overthrow the Afghan government was simply not within their power;
- that the Taliban was not seeking to establish a new caliphate, they were not an existential threat to the USA,
- that al-Qaeda's return to Afghanistan was highly unlikely.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.463
Oct 5, 2010
On War & Peace:
Enemy is Al Qaeda, not Taliban; timetable for withdrawal ok
Biden and Gen. McChrystal, the Afghan Commander, disagreed over the troop surge and the prime enemy in the war. McChrystal insisted it was the Taliban; Biden said it was still al-Qaeda, and he never saw the defeat and destruction of the Taliban as
essential, since the American mission was not nation-building as it was under Pres. Bush in Iraq--hence Biden's insistence on a timetable for troop withdrawal. Such sentiments were muted, however, by the time the Afghan strategy had been hammered out.
Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.475
Oct 5, 2010
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