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<font size="1"><a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/01/19/bidens-key-role-in-the-crime-of-the-century-the-2003-u-s-invasion-of-iraq/">https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/01/19/bidens-key-role-in-the-crime-of-the-century-the-2003-u-s-invasion-of-iraq/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Biden's Key Role in the Crime of the Century: The 2003 U.S. Invasion of Iraq<br></h1>
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<div class="gmail-td-post-author-name"><div class="gmail-td-author-by">By</div> <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/author/jeremykuzmarov/">Jeremy Kuzmarov</a><span class="gmail-td-post-date"> - January 19, 2021</span> </div></div>
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<img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq1.png?resize=696%2C454&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="279">Biden convenes hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the eve of the Iraq War. [Source: <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/15/20849072/joe-biden-iraq-history-democrats-election-2020">vox.com</a>]
<h2><strong>Part II of our series on Joe Biden and the political skeletons in his closet</strong></h2>
<p>Joe Biden presents himself as an empathetic guy who is willing to go
the extra mile to help people overcome their personal tragedies.</p>
<p>However, Biden has throughout his career endorsed policies that caused countless personal tragedies for millions of people.</p>
<p>The best example is his support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.</p>
<p>It led to the deaths and wounding of thousands of U.S. soldiers,
killing of an estimated one million Iraqis, and destabilization of a
wide swath of the Middle East.</p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq2.png?resize=696%2C464&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="285">President
George W. Bush signing a resolution authorizing the use of force
against Iraq at the White House on October 16, 2002. Joseph R. Biden,
Jr., then a senator, is seen at right. [Source: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/us/politics/joe-biden-iraq-war.html">nytimes.com</a>]
<p>In 2002, Biden was riding high, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his 30<sup>th</sup> year in the Senate.</p>
<p>Having supported Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983 and
bombing of Libya in 1986, Biden went on to embrace George H.W. Bush’s
invasion of Panama in 1991, and Bill Clinton’s bombing of Kosovo in
1999.<a><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
<p>When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (1979-2003) invaded Kuwait in 1991,
Biden did vote against invading Iraq, believing that Bush had not made
the case for war and that Hussein could be contained through an
international embargo.</p>
<p>However, once Bush went to war, Biden declared that he was giving
Bush his total support, and praised Bush for displaying real
“leadership,” never mentioning the 110,000 civilians who died.<a><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
<p>Following the 9/11 attacks, Biden supported the invasion of
Afghanistan and tried to raise funds for a Marshall Plan-type program to
fund the country’s reconstruction.</p>
<blockquote><p>Biden was so well connected to President George W. Bush
in this period that he had a secure phone line to the White House set up
in his home and met with Bush privately to plot out a public relations
message for the Afghan War.<a><sup><strong><sup>[3]</sup></strong></sup></a></p></blockquote>
<p>The <em>New Republic</em> termed Biden <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-hawk-presidential-candidate">“the Democratic Party’s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.” </a></p>
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq3.png?resize=696%2C348&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="214">With
Bush’s approval rating reaching 90 percent after 9/11, Biden said
“count me in the 90 percent.” There is “total cohesion between Democrats
and Republicans in the challenges ahead. There is no daylight between
us.” [Source: <a href="https://www.today.com/news/george-w-bush-congratulates-joe-biden-2020-election-t198060">today.com]</a>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?166841-1/us-response-terrorist-attacks">CSPAN talk before the Council on Foreign Relations in October 2001</a>,
Biden framed the War on Terror as an apocalyptic struggle between
civilization and a trans-national terrorist entity who would bring
violent disorder and chaos to the world.</p>
<p>Biden called for a strong U.S. commitment to the Middle East to
defeat al-Qaeda and help empower “moderate Muslims,” while pushing for
better efforts at public diplomacy.</p>
<p>When asked about Iraq, Biden said he was not in favor of immediate
invasion, but rather for imposing a “smarter sanctions” policy and
generating consensus for a multilateral coalition that would support the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>Several months later, Biden told a crowd of 400 Delaware National Guard officers that, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-hawk-presidential-candidate">“if Saddam Hussein is still there five years from now, we are in big trouble</a>
… It would be unrealistic, if not downright foolish, to believe we can
claim victory in the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power.”</p>
<h2><strong>“Take This Son of a Bitch Down”</strong></h2>
<p>Biden’s support for regime change in Iraq went back to the late 1990s.</p>
<p>After the first Persian Gulf War, Saddam had agreed to destroy Iraq’s
chemical weapons stockpile and to allow weapons inspectors into the
country.</p>
<p>Senator Biden supported President Clinton’s decision to remove the
weapons inspectors in 1998 in order to launch a four-day bombing
campaign, despite<a href="http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ritter-nuke-sen.htm"> </a><a href="http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ritter-nuke-sen.htm">being warned</a><a href="http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ritter-nuke-sen.htm"> </a>that it would likely end Saddam’s cooperation. Subsequently, Biden<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18381961/ns/meet_the_press/t/mtp-transcript-april/#.XKFUK6Q3vIU"> </a><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18381961/ns/meet_the_press/t/mtp-transcript-april/#.XKFUK6Q3vIU">insisted</a> that “Saddam kicked the [inspectors] out.”</p>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq4.png?resize=696%2C393&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="241">Biden presides over hearings where he advocated for regime change in Iraq in 1998. [Source: <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-history/">theintercept.com</a>]
<p>Scott Ritter, the chief UN weapons inspector, resigned in protest and
accused the international community of not giving him and his
colleagues the support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq.</p>
<div><img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq5a.png?resize=260%2C306&ssl=1" alt="" width="260" height="306">Scott
Ritter, chief UN weapons inspector, resigned in protest and accused the
international community of not giving him and his colleagues the
support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq. [Source: <a href="http://www.acamedia.info/politics/endgame.htm">academia.info</a>]</div>
<p>Ritter was called to testify before the Senate in September 1998
where Biden, who was then the highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign
Relations Committee, grilled him.</p>
<p>Biden told Ritter—whom he referred to condescendingly as “old Scotty Boy”—that no matter how thorough the inspections, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-history/">the only way to eliminate the threat was to remove Saddam Hussein</a>.</p>
<p>“The primary policy is to keep sanctions in place to deny Saddam the
billions of dollars that would allow him to really crank up his program,
which neither you nor I believe he’s ever going to abandon as long as
he’s in place,” Biden said, characterizing the then Clinton
administration’s policy.</p>
<p>Biden continued:</p>
<blockquote><p>You and I believe, and many of us believe here,
as long as Saddam is at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or
any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have
rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam’s program relative
to weapons of mass destruction. You and I both know, and all of us here
really know, and it’s a thing we have to face, that the only way, the
only way we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we’re going to end
up having to start it alone—start it alone—and it’s going to require
guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this
son of a bitch down. You know it and I know it.<a><sup><strong><sup>[4]</sup></strong></sup></a></p></blockquote>
<h2><strong>Mobilizing Support for War</strong></h2>
<p>Biden followed up on these statements at the end of July 2002 by chairing <a href="https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/worth-the-price-joe-biden-and-the-launch-of-the-iraq-war-narrated-by-danny-glover/">hearings in the Senate</a>
that were designed to mobilize congressional support for Operation
Iraqi Freedom, whose goal was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>Biden stated that the purpose of the hearings was to initiate a “national dialogue” on Iraq.</p>
<p>However, the witnesses were skewed to represent alarmist views about
Saddam and his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
and to support a preemptive strike. The three who testified on the
subject of al-Qaeda, falsely claimed it received direct support from
Iraq.</p>
<blockquote><p>Former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans Von Sponeck
complained about the “deliberate distortions and misrepresentations”
that “make it look to the average person in the U.S. as if Iraq is a
threat to their security.”<a><sup><strong><sup>[5]</sup></strong></sup></a></p></blockquote>
<p>Biden set the tone in his opening remarks when he emphasized that </p>
<blockquote><p>we <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">cannot be complacent</a>
about those who espouse hatred for us. We must confront clear danger
with a new sense of urgency and resolve. Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of
Weapons of Mass Destruction, in my view, is one of those clear dangers …
These weapons must be dislodged or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged
from power.</p></blockquote>
<p>These comments echoed a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/31/opinion/debating-iraq.html">New York Times op-ed</a>
Biden published the first day of the hearings with Richard Lugar
(R-IN), which suggested that continued containment of Saddam raised the
“risk that Mr. Hussein will play cat-and-mouse with inspectors while
building more weapons” and that “if we wait for the danger to become
clear and present, it may be too late.”</p>
<p>The first witness at the hearings was <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">Richard Butler, a diplomat-in-residence at the Council on Foreign Relations</a>
and former executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM), an inspection regime designed to ensure Iraqi compliance with
international protocols on WMD after the first Persian Gulf War.</p>
<p>Butler testified that Saddam’s claims that he had no WMDs was false.
Rather, Iraq had the components that were needed to manufacture nuclear
weapons and a <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">weaponized biological warfare program</a> with capability of loading anthrax onto missile warheads, and had terminated UNSCOM’s work in order to hide the truth.</p>
<p>In Butler’s view, Saddam was a war criminal who should be on trial at The Hague alongside Serb leader Slobodan Milošević. </p>
<p>The next witness, Khidir Hamza, was an Iraqi nuclear scientist who
had defected from Saddam’s regime and told his story in the book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Saddams-Bombmaker-Terrifiying-Nuclear-Biological-ebook/dp/B000FC0TP4">Saddam’s Bombmaker: The Daring Escape of the Man Who Built Iraq’s Secret Weapon</a>, written with Jeff Stein.</p>
<p>Claiming that Iraqis would welcome an American invasion “with open
arms,” Hamza warned that Saddam Hussein had “turned Iraqi science and
engineering enterprises into a “giant weapons making body.”</p>
<p>He said that Iraq possessed more than ten tons of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium">uranium</a>, and one ton of slightly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium">enriched uranium</a>,
which he claimed was enough to allow them to build three nuclear
weapons by 2005. Saddam was also well into chemical warfare production
and developing biological warfare capabilities.</p>
<p>According to Hamza, Saddam was a vicious tyrant who had hunted down
defectors in exile like his brother-in law Hussein Kamel, who was killed
in 1996.</p>
<p>Saddam was further linked to Islamic fundamentalism, training foreign
jihadist fighters at an Iraqi intelligence camp twenty miles south of
Baghdad, including in tactics of hijacking which was confirmed allegedly
by satellite photos.</p>
<p>The Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, Farouk Hijazi, had traveled to Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden in 1998.</p>
<p>Most, if not all of Hamza’s information on Iraq’s nuclear weapons
program was untrue, and UNSCOM inspectors insist that Hamza was never
actually part of Iraq’s nuclear program.</p>
<p>David Albright, who wrote a series of articles on Iraq’s nuclear program, stated that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/17/iraq.peterbeaumont">Hamza’s unreliability</a> stemmed from his support for U.S. military action. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/17/iraq.peterbeaumont">He told me he wanted to get a gun himself and go back and fight with his sons.</a></p>
<p>UN weapons inspector <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter">Scott Ritter</a> <a href="https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/ritter.html">heavily criticized the use of Hamza’s testimony as a rationale for invading Iraq</a>. He said:</p>
<blockquote><p>We seized the entire records of the Iraqi nuclear
program, especially the administrative records. We got a name of
everybody, where they worked, what they did, and the top of the list,
Saddam’s ‘Bombmaker’ was a man named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jafar_Dhia_Jafar">Jafar Dhia Jafar</a>,
not Khidir Hamza, and if you go down the list of the senior
administrative personnel you will not find Hamza’s name in there. In
fact, we didn’t find his name at all. Because in 1990, he didn’t work
for the Iraqi Nuclear Program. He had no knowledge of it because he
worked as a kickback specialist for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_Kamel_al-Majid">Hussein Kamel</a> in the Presidential Palace. He goes into northern Iraq and meets up with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Chalabi">Ahmed Chalabi</a>.</p><p>He
walks in and says, “I’m Saddam’s ‘Bombmaker.’” So they call the CIA and
they say, “we know who you are, you’re not Saddam’s ‘Bombmaker,’ go
sell your story to someone else.” And he was released, he was rejected
by all intelligence services at the time, he’s a fraud. And here we are,
someone who the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA">CIA</a> knows is a fraud, the U.S. Government knows is a <a href="https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/ritter.html">fraud,</a> is allowed to sit in front of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_Foreign_Relations">United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations</a> and give testimony as an expert witness. </p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>These comments provide a stinging rebuke of Biden and his deceit of the American people.</p></blockquote>
<p>Witness after witness that followed Hamza advanced a similar underlying message to him.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">Charles Duelfer, the former executive chairman of UNSCOM, stated from the outset that he favored regime change in Iraq</a>,
and highlighted, as a source of comparison, the 1919 Versailles
Treaty’s failure to prevent Hitler from rearming Germany despite an
inspections regime that had been set up.</p>
<p>Duelfer asked subsequently “whether we were prepared to give back the
Saddam regime control over the oil revenues.” He stressed that “our
highest priority should be convincing Iraqis in Iraq that they will be <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">better off when Saddam was gone, and that he will be gone</a>.” </p>
<p>Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney, the former Assistant Vice
Chief of the Air Force, detailed before the committee how regime change
could be accomplished through “blitz warfare”–a “24-hour, 7 day a week
campaign,” using “precision weapons,” and “supported by fast mobbing
ground forces and heavy, light, airborne amphibious, special covert
operations working with [Iraqi] opposition forces.”</p>
<p>One of the hearings’ main academic experts, Fouad Ajami, director of
Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
International Studies, emphasized an alleged linkage between Iraq and
9/11 and said that Muslim hatred of America resulted from jealousy of
American success and talent–among the untalented–and not historical
factors or opposition to U.S. foreign policies.</p>
<p>Ajami went on to suggest that Americans would be greeted in Baghdad and Basra with “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">kites and boom boxes”</a>—as they allegedly had been in Kabul. </p>
<p>Residents of these cities were “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">eager for deliverance from the tyranny and the great big prison of Saddam Hussein</a>.”</p>
<p>Rend al-Rahim Francke, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rend_al-Rahim_Francke">a cousin and close associate of Ahmed Chalabi</a>—a
con man who helped lobby for the Iraq War—echoed Ajami in claiming that
American troops would be greeted as liberators and said that there
would be no civil war after the U.S. invaded.</p>
<p>A member of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Liberation_of_Iraq">Committee for the Liberation of Iraq</a>,
which was set up to lobby Congress to support an invasion of Iraq, she
proposed a Bonn meeting for Iraq modeled on Afghanistan to help select
the post-Saddam leadership.</p>
<p>The Bonn conference was highly unpopular among Afghans, however,
because foreigners selected their leaders for them, and it went against
the idea of democracy.</p>
<p>After Saddam was overthrown, Francke was appointed Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., and in 2004 was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rend_al-Rahim_Francke">guest of Laura Bush</a>
in the First Lady’s box at George W. Bush’s State of the Union address.
Subsequently, she established the Iraqi-American Freedom Alliance,
whose aim was to show the positive consequences of the U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq.</p>
<p>The few skeptics who testified at the hearing mainly raised questions
about tactics, economic cost and military feasibility of regime change
and how long it might take to stabilize the country, but not about the
potential cost for Iraqis or hidden underlying motives behind U.S.
policy.<a><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
<p>Dr. Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert and former professor at the National
Defense University, was characteristic in considering the goal of regime
change to be <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">“ambitious.”</a></p>
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq13.png?resize=696%2C394&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="242">Dr.
Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert, saw regime change programs in Iraq as
ambitious and advocated for the use of ground troops and adequate
resources so it could be undertaken effectively. [Source: <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/09/29/iraq-phebe-marr/16220997/">usatoday.com</a>]
<p>She stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>If the United States is going to take the
responsibility for removing the current leadership, it should assume
that it cannot get the results it wants ‘on the cheap.’ It must be
prepared to put some troops on the ground, provide advisors to help
create new institutions, and, above all, spend time and effort in the
future to see the project through to a satisfactory end. If the United
States is not willing to do so, it had best rethink the project.</p></blockquote>
<p>In short, the United States should try to be good colonials and
initiate a sustained long-term military and political commitment or none
at all—hardly an anti-war position. </p>
<p>In the afternoon session of the last day, former <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger</a>
(1981-1987), branded Saddam Hussein as a “purveyor of evil” and
“implacable” and “permanent foe of the United States,” and former
National Security Adviser <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">Sandy Berger</a> (1993-1996), called Saddam a “menace to his own people and the stability of the region.”</p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/iraq14a.png?resize=696%2C453&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="278">Sandy Berger testifies at hearings with Caspar Weinberger in the background. [Source: <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/samuel-sandy-berger-former-u-s-national-security-advisor-to-news-photo/1197997">gettyimages.com</a>]
<p>Emphasizing Saddam’s link to terrorist groups such as the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas, and al-Qaeda’s growing
presence in Iraq, Weinberger was most strident in his support for
preemptive war.</p>
<p>The United States, he said, had successfully “changed several regimes
after World War II” and “in each case, the result was a “vast and major
improvement.”</p>
<h2><strong>Exclusion of Voices for Peace</strong></h2>
<p>While Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) praised Biden for <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">“producing a very fine moment in the history of the [Senate Foreign Relations] Committee,”</a> anti-war Senators Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) raised concern about the lack of balance.</p>
<p>Chafee told Biden that the panel he had set up “gave the perspective
that the threat [from Saddam and his alleged WMDs] was very real, very
immediate” but that it would have been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SemNT372CIw">“good to have a different perspective [offered].”</a></p>
<blockquote><p>Wellstone was able to get inserted into the record three principled anti-war statements.</p></blockquote>
<p>The first was written by Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS). She provided a warning from Nelson Mandela that
“attacking Iraq would be a disaster,” and predicted that it would “kill
thousands of civilians,” risk the lives of U.S. military personnel, lead
to a “long and bloody occupation” and “cost billions of dollars
urgently needed at home.”</p>
<p>Bennis noted that there were absolutely no verifiable reports
regarding Iraq’s WMD program or evidence of Iraqi involvement in the
9/11 terrorist attacks—Iraq was in fact antagonistic to bin Laden and
vice versa—and she said that preemptive strikes were illegal under
international law.</p>
<p>The second anti-war statement came from <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">J. Daryl Byler of the Mennonite Central Committee’s Washington Office</a>,
who advocated for a regional approach to Iraq’s disarmament and
establishment of an international tribunal as a right way to investigate
allegations of crimes against humanity by Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>Byler noted that, for more than 20 years, ordinary Iraqis had
suffered from the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq and Gulf Wars and impact of
UN sanctions intended to contain and control the Iraqi government, and
that a U.S. invasion would make a bad situation worse and result in the
deaths of thousands of children and civilians.</p>
<p>Byler predicted that the war would further destabilize the Middle
East and provide “yet another example that the world’s superpower is
unilaterally able to impose its will and wish on less powerful
countries.” An Iraqi evangelical church leader told his delegation that
“we hope that someday your country will stop doing everything with
force.”</p>
<p>The third anti-war statement was written by Dr. Peter Pellet,
emeritus professor of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, and Dr. Colin Rowat, a professor of economics at the University
of Manchester.</p>
<p>They emphasized the humanitarian crisis resulting from the U.S.
bombing of the electrical grid during the first Persian Gulf War and
imposition of economic sanctions and believed that the civilian costs of
new military action would be greater than in 1990.</p>
<blockquote><p>The three principled anti-war statements contrasted
markedly with the rest of the hearings and were prescient in their
analysis and warnings.</p></blockquote>
<p>They did not command the same attention, however, as the regular panelists since they were not issued in-person.<a><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
<p>Their inclusion was a masterful trick designed to sustain the
illusion that all sides were represented in the “national dialogue.”
Really, however, it was a staged political event designed to lay the
groundwork for war.</p>
<p>Afterwards, President Bush thanked Biden for holding the hearings,
and Biden went on all the major television networks to argue for war,
citing the lopsided testimony he had arranged. “We have no choice but to
eliminate the threat,” he told <em>Meet the Press</em>.<a><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq20.png?resize=696%2C456&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="280">Scott
Ritter giving a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy school pointing to the
lack of evidence for WMDs. He was a key figure excluded from the
hearing. [Source: <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/09/former-weapons-inspector-iraqi-arms-gone-as-of-1998/">news.harvard.edu</a>]
<h2><strong>Twisting the Truth</strong></h2>
<p>In his memoir, <em>Promises to Keep</em>—published in 2007 when he
was running to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee—Biden
claimed that the two days of expert testimony at the Senate hearings
were “a good start to educating the country about the monumental
difficulties of opening up another military front.”</p>
<p>Biden wrote that “not wanting the president to get locked into going
to war,” his intention was to “make public the disincentives to going to
war in Iraq.”<a><sup>[9]</sup></a></p>
<p>Prior to the hearings, Biden wrote that President Bush personally
assured him that “there was no plan to take down Iraq” and that he was
confident at the time that “Secretary of State Colin Powell was trying
to dissuade the president from an invasion.”</p>
<p>Ten days later, however, Biden read in the <em>Washington Post</em>
that Bush had signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to
undertake a comprehensive covert program to topple Saddam Hussein,
including lethal authority to capture the Iraqi president.” Biden wrote
that he didn’t ask the administration to send any witnesses as such
because “I didn’t want to force their hand.”<a><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
<p>Biden leaves the impression that he was opposed to the war and trying
to stop it and did not want to give the Bush administration a voice,
stating that the consensus of the experts was that Saddam “was five to
ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon” and “not an imminent
threat.”</p>
<p>However, in his introductory remarks and accompanying <em>New York Times</em>
op-ed, Biden had stated that Saddam was a major threat who had to be
confronted, and the experts at the hearings testified that Saddam <em>was </em>a grave threat, had WMD, was linked to al-Qaeda, and would have a nuclear weapon within three years; not five to ten.</p>
<blockquote><p>Biden directly contradicted what he wrote in in his memoir when he told Meet the Press host Tim Russert in April 2007 that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18381961#.XKFUK6Q3vIU">“everyone in the world thought he [Saddam] had them [WMDs]. The weapons inspectors said he had them.”</a></p></blockquote>
<p>In an attempt to show the hearings promoted a cautionary message,
Biden referenced the testimony of military expert Anthony Cordesman, who
said that war was not a game and quoted from the Roman philosopher
Pliny the Elder: “Small boys throw stones at frogs in jest. But, the
frogs do not die in jest. The frogs die in earnest.”<a><sup>[11]</sup></a></p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq22.png?resize=600%2C412&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="293">Anthony Cordesman [Source: <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Anthony_H._Cordesman/">upi.com</a>]
<p>Cordesman, however, promoted an alarmist narrative about Saddam in his testimony, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107shrg81697/html/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm">warning
about his possession of anthrax weapons with nuclear lethalities, and
capacity for carrying out chemical and biological weapon attacks
directed against U.S. bases and troops in the Persian Gulf</a>. Cordesman further insinuated the need for a full-scale ground invasion since air strikes would not be enough.<a><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
<h2><strong>Biden Ignores CIA Director’s Assessment</strong></h2>
<p>One month and a half after the hearings, Biden gained access to
information that disproved the WMD claims, though he never acted upon
it.</p>
<p>In a classified hearing on September 24, 2002, at the urging of a
staff member, Biden asked then-CIA Director George Tenet what evidence
of WMDs the U.S. had “technically collected.”</p>
<p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-history/">“None, Senator,” Tenet said,</a> according to an account in the book <em>Hubris</em>,
by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Biden, wondering if there was some
highly classified evidence, asked Tenet, “George, do you want me to
clear the staff out of the room?” Tenet told him no. <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/joe-biden-and-the-iraq-war-its-complicated/">“There’s no reason to, Senator.”</a></p>
<p>Later in that same hearing, Biden heard from two government witnesses who rejected the “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/06/lie-after-lie-what-colin-powell-knew-about-iraq-fifteen-years-ago-and-what-he-told-the-un/">aluminum tubes</a>”
claim that had been circulating, and would later become a centerpiece
of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations
promoting preemptive war.</p>
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/powell.jpg?resize=370%2C177&ssl=1" alt="" width="370" height="177">General
Colin Powell has called his 2003 speech to the United Nations, laying
out the Bush administration’s rationale for war in Iraq, a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/politics/powell-calls-his-un-speech-a-lasting-blot-on-his-record.html">“blot”</a>
on his record. The speech set out to detail Iraq’s weapons program, but
as the intelligence confirmed, that program was nonexistent. The former
Secretary of State acknowledged that his report to the Security Council
was only intended to give credit to the accusations from the
administration and that the intelligence services had not “worked
properly.” [Source: <a href="https://www.voltairenet.org/article128203.html">volatirenet.org</a>]
<p>Biden nevertheless would go on to vote in favor of the war on Iraq,
even though he knew that the stated reasons—that Saddam had WMD—was
unproven or false, and lied about this later.</p>
<h2><strong>Biden Votes for War</strong></h2>
<p>After hearing from Tenet, Biden, with Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), proposed an <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/joe-biden-and-the-iraq-war-its-complicated/">alternative to George W. Bush’s war resolution</a> that would only allow Bush to attack Iraq for the purpose of destroying WMD <em>and</em> only after seeking UN approval.</p>
<p>If the UN turned Bush down, he would have to come back to Congress
and prove Saddam posed a WMD threat so “grave” that only military action
could eliminate it.</p>
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq24.png?resize=696%2C460&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="282">Biden and Dick Lugar [Source: <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/10/21/bidens-committee-days-bode-well-for-how-he-would-govern/">rollcall.com</a>]
<p>When Biden’s plan was derailed, however, through the work of Dick
Gephardt (D-MI), the Democratic Party leader in the House, Biden backed
Bush’s war resolution.</p>
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq25.png?resize=630%2C360&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="244">George W. Bush and Dick Gephardt, bipartisanship at work! [Source: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2310717.stm">news.bbc.co.uk</a>]
<p>On October 10, 2002, on the eve of the vote, Biden repeated before
the Senate his claims about Saddam’s threat and pursuit of nuclear
weapons and framed military intervention as a “march to peace and
security,” specifying that the “threat need not be imminent for us to
take action.”</p>
<p>The next day, Biden was one of 77 Senators who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/us/politics/joe-biden-iraq-war.html">voted to authorize military force in Iraq</a>, joining fellow Democrats Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, John Kerry, and Dianne Feinstein.</p>
<p>In early November, Biden introduced the Iraqi Scientists Liberation Act before the Senate, which granted <a href="https://www.wired.com/2002/11/u-s-lures-iraqi-weapons-experts/">permanent residency status to 500 Iraqi scientists</a> if they supplied information on weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>The clear intent was to lure defectors like Khidir Hamza who could
validate the Bush administration’s stated reasons for going to war,
while giving the impression that the U.S. was trying to destroy Iraq’s
WMD.</p>
<p>Years later, when campaigning for higher office, Biden told NPR that
he had voted for war only after he got a commitment from Bush that he
needed the vote to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not
Saddam was establishing a nuclear program. According to Biden, his <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">mistake was to trust Bush.</a></p>
<p>Bush’s office denied Biden’s version of events, however, saying that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760043103/biden-tries-to-clarify-his-record-on-iraq-war-during-democratic-debate">his recollections were wrong</a>.</p>
<p>Biden later conceded that he had misspoke and at a Democratic Party debate said that he “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760043103/biden-tries-to-clarify-his-record-on-iraq-war-during-democratic-debate">never should have voted to give [President] Bush the authority to go in and do what he said he was going to do</a>.”</p>
<h2><strong>Staying the Course</strong></h2>
<p>When Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam on March 17, 2003—leave or be invaded—Biden predictably backed him.<a><sup>[13]</sup></a></p>
<p>Four months later, Biden told a gathering at the Brookings Institution that he had cast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">“the right vote</a> [on the war], and it would be a correct vote today.” </p>
<p>Biden went on to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">praise the leadership of the Coalition Provisional Authority</a>, a<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Life-Emerald-City-Inside/dp/0307278832"> corrupt and incompetent organization</a>. Its chief, Paul Bremer, was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">“first-rate,”</a> Biden said mere months after Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army, leading directly to the rise of an insurgency and civil war.</p>
<p>Biden called Bernard Kerik, the former NYPD Commissioner tasked with
building a new police force, “a serious guy with a serious team.”
However, Iraq’s police would soon become <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/world/middleeast/21security.html">indistinguishable</a> from <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/training-iraqs-death-squads/">sectarian death squads</a>, and Kerik would later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/nyregion/19kerik.html">plead guilty to tax fraud</a> and other federal corruption charges.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2003, as security broke down in Iraq, Biden’s solution was “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">more foreign troops to share our mission.” </a></p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq26.png?resize=580%2C418&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="308">Wreckage from a car bomb in Baghdad. [Source: <a href="https://socialistworker.org/2013/11/11/the-roots-of-iraqs-violence">socialistworker.org</a>]
<p>At the 2004 Democratic Party Convention at the Fleet Center in
Boston, Biden tried to deflect responsibility away from himself and onto
President Bush.</p>
<p>Biden admitted at the time that <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">the
intelligence “was hyped to justify going to war,” causing “America’s
credibility and security [to] have suffered a terrible blow.” </a></p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq27.png?resize=696%2C516&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="317">Biden speaking at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention. [Source: <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-democratic-national-convention-50-years/">cbsnews.com</a>]
<p>This was a stunning admission in light of the role Biden had played in “hyping” the Iraqi threat.</p>
<p>Biden said he felt that the worst legacy of the Iraq war was not its human costs, but rather a “further <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">hardening of the Vietnam syndrome</a> that afflicts some in the Democratic Party—a distrust of the use of American power.” </p>
<p>These comments reflected Biden’s longstanding neoconservative outlook
and disdain for the Vietnam era anti-war movement, which was unaffected
by his shifting position on Iraq.</p>
<p>As a law student at Syracuse University in the late 1960s, Biden had
derided Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) activists who occupied
the Chancellor’s office to protest the Vietnam War, calling out “look at
these assholes.”<a><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
<h2><strong>A Neocolonial Solution</strong></h2>
<p>In July 2005, as Iraq descended into nightmarish sectarian violence,
Biden told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he remained “<a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/071805_Transcript_Policy%20Options%20for%20Iraq.pdf">hopeful”</a> about the situation, despite some of his earlier critical comments, and that U.S. forces had <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/071805_Transcript_Policy%20Options%20for%20Iraq.pdf">“turned a political corner of sorts.</a>” Subsequently, Biden said that “calling it quits and withdrawing” would be a “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18381961#.XKFUK6Q3vIU">gigantic mistake.”</a></p>
<p>Biden in this period routinely voted for billion-dollar war
appropriations and used his status as Chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee to “advocate loudly for more troops and better police
training,” which he considered key to successful counterinsurgency.<a><sup>[15]</sup></a></p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq28.png?resize=696%2C464&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="285">Biden visits with troops in Iraq. (2007) [Source: <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again">thedailybeast.com</a>]
<p>In May 2006, Biden penned <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01biden.html">a </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01biden.html"><em>New York Times</em></a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01biden.html"> op-ed, with Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations</a>,
which rejected the false choice of “staying the course” or “bringing
the troops home,” but aimed to wind down the U.S. military presence
“responsibly.”</p>
<p>This was to be achieved by establishing three largely autonomous
regions, one for each of Iraq’s major ethnic and confessional groups,
presided over by a nominally national Baghdad government, something he
called “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01biden.html">unity through autonomy</a>.”</p>
<p>The model was the Dayton accords on Bosnia, which kept the country
whole by dividing it into ethnic federations, and allowing Muslims,
Croats and Serbs to retain separate armies. These accords were deeply
flawed, however, in that they <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/joe-biden-defends-record-iraq-including-plan-divide-along-sectarian-lines/">enshrined the violent division of Bosnia along ethnic lines.</a></p>
<p>In September 2007, Biden prevailed upon his fellow senators to endorse his flawed <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crec/2007/09/26/CREC-2007-09-26-pt1-PgS12093-2.pdf">proposal</a> in a lopsided <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00348">75-23 vote</a>. Outside
of Kurdistan, there was zero support among Iraqis, who saw the proposal
as a neocolonial strategy designed to break up, divide and weaken their
country.</p>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq29.png?resize=696%2C393&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="241">Senate Foreign Relations Chair Joe Biden before a hearing on policy options in Iraq on January 10, 2007. [Source: <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/15/20849072/joe-biden-iraq-history-democrats-election-2020">vox.com</a>]
<p>The plan so <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/joe-biden-defends-record-iraq-including-plan-divide-along-sectarian-lines/">tarnished Biden’s reputation</a> that, in August 2008, when he was named Barack Obama’s running mate, Iraqis across the political spectrum reacted with dismay.</p>
<p>“This choice of Biden is disappointing, because he is the creator of
the idea of dividing Iraq,” Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of National Dialogue,
one of the main Sunni Arab blocs in parliament, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-biden/vp-choice-biden-unpopular-in-iraq-for-autonomy-plan-idUSLN9698420080823">told Reuters</a> that day.</p>
<p>“We rejected his proposal when he announced it, and we still reject
it. Dividing the communities and land in such a way would only lead to
new fighting between people over resources and borders. Iraq cannot
survive unless it is unified, and dividing it would keep the problems
alive for a long time.”</p>
<h2><strong>Obama’s Point Man</strong></h2>
<p>Despite Biden’s unpopularity and complicity in the destruction of
Iraq, Obama appointed him as his point man there, allegedly telling him:
<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/15/20849072/joe-biden-iraq-history-democrats-election-2020">“Joe, you do Iraq.”</a></p>
<p>This was not in hindsight a very smart move.</p>
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq30.png?resize=696%2C468&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="287">Biden meets U.S. troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad in January 2011. [Source: <a href="https://time.com/5890577/biden-middle-east-special-operations-forces/">time.com</a>]
<p>Robert Ford, a one-time diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/joe-biden-defends-record-iraq-including-plan-divide-along-sectarian-lines/">blames Biden for helping to fuel the rise of the Islamic State</a> when he decided to support the return of the sectarian Shia politician Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister in 2010.</p>
<div><img src="https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq31.png?resize=410%2C439&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="399" height="427">Biden shares a warm handshake with Nouri al-Maliki. [Source: <a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/jul/05/biden-calls-for-unity-in-iraq/">spokesman.com]</a></div>
<p>According to Emma Sky, who was the political adviser to Raymond
Odierno, the commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq that year, Biden
seemed preoccupied with the idea of irreconcilable sectarian differences
during a visit.</p>
<p>Odierno told Biden that the previously secular al-Maliki had become
so sectarian and authoritarian that Iraqis feared him, and a secular
leader would be more welcome, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/obama-iraq-116708?o=2">Sky recalled</a> in her memoir, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Unraveling-Hopes-Missed-Opportunities/dp/161039593X">The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq</a>.”</p>
<p>“I tried to explain the struggle between secularists and Islamists,
and how many Iraqis wanted to move beyond sectarianism,” Sky wrote. “But
Biden could not fathom this. For him, Iraq was simply about Sunnis,
Shia and Kurds.”</p>
<p>As Sky pushed back on Biden’s belief that sectarian differences were
the key to Iraq, she wrote: “He was clearly irritated by me. ‘Look, I
know these people,’” he went on. “‘My grandfather was Irish and hated
the British. It’s like in the Balkans. They all grow up hating each
other.’”</p>
<p>The result, as Reidar Visser <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/an-unstable-divided-land.html">observed in 2011</a>,
was an al-Maliki government “made up of mostly pro-Iranian Shiite
Islamists,” with the secular Iraqiya Party, which had won a plurality of
votes in the March 2010 parliamentary elections, sidelined.</p>
<p>Though Biden was close to al-Maliki, when Arab-Spring style protests
erupted, Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry quietly worked to help
install Haidar al-Abadi, the former communications minister who was
committed to privatizing Iraq’s economy in line with the original goals
of the 2003 military invasion.</p>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq32.png?resize=696%2C406&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="249">Biden with Haidar al-Abadi. [Source: <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/16/iraq-pm-religious-tensions-could-undermine-region/">washingtontimes.com</a>]
<p>Al-Abadi tried to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haider_al-Abadi">increase Sunni participation in government</a>
and root out corruption in the army and police, while securing a $1.5
billion pledge from the Obama administration to train the Iraqi security
forces and sell <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-16">F-16</a> fighter jets.</p>
<p>In 2016, frustration with Al-Abadi’s government resulted in a revolt led by Shia cleric <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/19/iraq-anti-us-cleric-moqtada-al-sadrs-bloc-confirmed-as-election-winners">Moqtada al-Sadr, who won parliamentary elections in 2018</a>.</p>
<p>Al-Sadr had mobilized his Mahdi army to resist the U.S. occupation of
Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein and drew Iraq closer to Iran.
His ascendancy reflected the failings of U.S. policy, which Biden had
been integral to.</p>
<h2><strong>Supporting Another War on an Enemy He Helped Create</strong></h2>
<p>After overseeing troop withdrawals in 2011, Biden played an important
role in the second Iraq War, which began when the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIS)—led by former Saddamist Generals, al-Qaeda
terrorists and disaffected Sunnis—took over swaths of territory in Iraq
in the summer of 2014 with Turkish backing.</p>
<p>In June 2014, the Obama administration ordered thousands of troops
back into Iraq without authorization from Congress, claiming that the
troops would serve in an advisory capacity, and that ISIS was equivalent
to al-Qaeda, against which the U.S. had already declared war.<a><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
<p>According to Brett McGurk, a former U.S. official with extensive experience in Iraq, Biden supported the strategy known as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/06/joe-bidens-iraq-decisions-haunt-him-2020/592669/">“by, with, and through”</a>
to fight ISIS, in which America left most of the fighting to local
soldiers and used its special forces, intelligence, and air power.</p>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq34.png?resize=696%2C465&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="285">
<p>Biden visits U.S. troops fighting on the front lines against ISIS in Jordan. [Source: <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3485465/VP-Biden-meets-Jordans-King-Abdullah-key-Mideast-ally.html">dailymail.co.uk</a>]</p>
<p>The heavy focus on air strikes deriving from Biden’s strategy resulted in untold civilian casualties. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html">A study published in the </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html"><em>New York Times Magazine</em></a>
determined that one in five of the 27,500 coalition air strikes over
Iraq resulted in at least one civilian death, more than 31 times that
acknowledged by the coalition. The second war in Iraq, the authors
noted, “may be the least transparent war in recent American history.”<a><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
<p>The U.S. forces in Iraq were commanded by General Lloyd Austin, whom
President-elect Biden appointed as the first African American Secretary
of Defense.</p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq35.png?resize=696%2C436&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="267">Joe Biden and General Lloyd Austin in Baghdad. [Source: <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bidens-pick-for-defense-secretary-faces-tough-confirmation-process/">thetimesofisrael.com</a>]
<p>Austin helped oversee the razing of Mosul by U.S. and Iraqi forces
which deployed rocket-assisted munitions and powerful explosive weapons
that caused blast-related injuries.</p>
<blockquote><p>The New York Times described “a panorama of destruction
in the neighborhood of Judida so vast one resident compared the
destruction to that of Hiroshima, Japan. There was a charred arm,
wrapped in a piece of red fabric poking from the rubble, rescue workers
in red jumpsuits who came wore face masks to avoid the stench, some with
rifles slung over their shoulders, searching the wreckage for bodies.”<a><sup><strong><sup>[18]</sup></strong></sup></a></p></blockquote>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq36.png?resize=696%2C464&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="285">Rescue workers search for bodies after U.S. air strike in Mosul. [Source: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/opinion/isis-syria-iraq-civilian-casualties.html">nytimes.com</a>]
<p>Biden’s involvement in Iraq by this time had come full circle. </p>
<blockquote><p>During his vice presidency he found himself championing
another dirty war against an enemy he had been instrumental in
creating—first by supporting preemptive war against Saddam Hussein, and
then by supporting the ethnic division of the country and sectarian
politicians like Nouri al-Maliki.</p></blockquote>
<p>Biden himself has suffered from his poor decisions—his son Beau died from brain cancer suspected to have <a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/news/joe-biden-burn-pits-toxic-exposure/">derived from toxic exposure</a> at Balad Air Base north of Baghdad, where the U.S. military burned an estimated 140 tons of waste a day in open air burn pits.<a><sup>[19]</sup></a></p>
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Iraq37.png?resize=696%2C526&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="323">Beau Biden, left, may have died because of his father’s boneheaded decisions. [Source: <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-beau-biden-20150531-story.html">latimes.com]</a>
<p>It is unclear as of this writing what President Biden might do to further torture Iraqis in the next four years.</p>
<p>Certainly, he will follow through with previously announced troop
withdrawals, but will also continue to sustain military advisory and
training programs, special forces operations, air strikes and private
military contractors as part of a light footprint approach.</p>
<p>The ultimate aim is to gain access to military bases and Iraq’s oil
fields, which is what the long Iraq War has always really been about. </p>
<div><img src="https://i2.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CAM-5.jpg?resize=30%2C20&ssl=1" alt="" width="30" height="20"></div>
<hr>
<p><strong><a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/author/jeremykuzmarov/">Jeremy Kuzmarov</a></strong> is Managing Editor of <em>CovertAction Magazine</em>.</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/01/11/exclusive-series-bidens-foreign-policy-history-and-what-it-portends-for-his-presidency/"><strong>See
Part 1 in our “Exclusive Series: Biden’s Foreign Policy History and
What it Portends for his Presidency” – The Forgotten Story of How Joe
Biden Helped Ramp Up the War on Drugs in Colombia</strong></a></p>
<hr>
<p><a>[1]</a> Branko Marcetic, <em>Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden</em> (London: Verso, 2020), 159.</p>
<p><a>[2]</a> Marcetic, <em>Yesterday’s Man</em>, 140.</p>
<p><a>[3]</a> Marcetic, <em>Yesterday’s Man</em>, 148.</p>
<p><a>[4]</a> Ryan Grim, “Five Years Before Invasion, Said the Only Way of Disarming Iraq Is ‘Taking Saddam Down,’” <em>The Intercept</em>, January 7, 2020, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-history/">https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-history/</a>. Biden repeated his call for war in an oped in <em>The Washington Post</em> in September 1998 in which he wrote: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1998/09/19/i-meant-no-disrespect/6acd6366-2058-4a7c-83cd-da4d345c144d/">“as
long as Saddam Hussein is at the helm, no inspectors can guarantee that
they have rooted out the entirety of Saddam Hussein’s weapons program</a>. And I said [at the Senate hearing] the only way to r<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1998/09/19/i-meant-no-disrespect/6acd6366-2058-4a7c-83cd-da4d345c144d/">emove Saddam is a massive military effort, led by the United States</a>.”</p>
<p><a>[5]</a> Marcetic, <em>Yesterday’s Man</em>, 151.</p>
<p><a>[6]</a>
Many of the skeptics endorsed a strengthening of economic
sanctions—which were known to have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of children from disease and malnutrition—and expanded aid to
Iraqi opposition groups, even though the U.S.-sponsored ones were led
by charlatans like Ahmed Chalabi, who had been sentenced to twenty-two
years in prison in Jordan for bank fraud.</p>
<p><a>[7]</a>
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was willing to fly one witness
in from Australia but would not allow authors of the anti-war statements
appear in person—even though at least one, Phyllis Bennis, lived in
Washington.</p>
<p><a>[8]</a> Marcetic, <em>Yesterday’s Man,</em> 151.</p>
<p><a>[9]</a> Joe Biden, <em>Promises to Keep</em> (New York: Random House, 2007), 332, 333.</p>
<p><a>[10]</a> Biden, <em>Promises To Keep,</em> 332.</p>
<p><a>[11]</a> Biden, <em>Promises to Keep,</em> 333.</p>
<p><a>[12]</a> According to an article in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Business_Review"><em>National Business Review</em></a>, Cordesman was said to have been “48 per cent” convinced on the need to invade Iraq in 2003, but contends that “concerns over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein">Saddam’s</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction">weapons of mass destruction</a> were valid.” Jeremy Hall, “The Clash Within Civilizations,” <em>National Business Review</em>, September 17, 2006, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110611061421/http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/the-clash-within-civilizations">https://web.archive.org/web/20110611061421/http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/the-clash-within-civilizations</a></p>
<p><a>[13]</a> Marcetic, <em>Yesterday’s Man</em>, 153.</p>
<p><a>[14]</a> Biden, <em>Promises to Keep,</em> 159. It is uncertain if this story is true.</p>
<p><a>[15]</a> Biden, <em>Promises to Keep</em>, 348.</p>
<p><a>[16]</a> See Jeremy Kuzmarov, <em>Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State</em> (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019), 180.</p>
<p><a>[17]</a>
Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, “The Uncounted: An on-the-Ground
Investigation Reveals That the U.S. led Battle Against ISIS—Hailed as
the Most Precise Air Campaign in History—is Killing Far more Iraqi
Civilians than the Coalition Has Acknowledged,” <em>The New York Times Magazine</em>, November 19, 2017, 43-47.</p>
<p><a>[18]</a> Kuzmarov, <em>Obama’s Unending Wars</em>, 181, 182.</p>
<p><a>[19]</a> In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k2lsygJUJU">2019 speech</a> to
the Service Employees International Union, Joe Biden said that, because
of Beau’s “exposure to burn pits, in my view, I can’t prove it yet, he
came back with stage four glioblastoma. Eighteen months he lived,
knowing he was going to die.”</p>
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