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Stance:
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Create conditions for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw.
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Description:
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"The only way to hold Iraq together and create the conditions for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw is to give Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds incentives to pursue their interests peacefully and to forge a sustainable political settlement." - Biden He outlined a 5 point plan with Les Gelb.
1. Unify Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis their own regions. The central government would be left in charge of common interests.
2. Bind the Sunnis to the deal by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of oil revenue. Each group would have an incentive to maximize oil production, making oil the glue that binds the country together.
3. Create a massive jobs program while increasing reconstruction aid -- especially from the oil-rich Gulf states -- but tying it to the protection of minority rights.
4. Convene an international conference that would produce a regional nonaggression pact and create a Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.
5. Redeployment of U.S. forces this year and withdraw most of them by the end of 2007, while maintaining a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest and to strike any concentration of terrorists.
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Citations:
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| 1. |
South Carolina Democratic debate transcript (8/2/07)
"Look, Brian, this is not a game show. You know, this is not a football game. This is not win or lose. The fact of the matter is that the president has a fundamentally flawed policy. It's based upon the notion of being able to set a strong, central government in Baghdad that will be democratic.
And the real question is: Are we going to be able to leave Iraq, get our troops out, and leave behind something other than chaos?
In order to do that, the president should start off by not vetoing the language which we just -- he says he's going to veto, we just passed today saying, "Begin to drawdown American troops right now and move toward a political solution."
Look, there's only one way. You've got to change the fundamental premise of this engagement, and that is, you've got to decentralize Iraq, you've got to give the regions control over their own destiny, get them control over their police forces, their own identity, and have a limited central government and share their oil wealth (ph). The president better get on the game plan here, or he is just going to drag this out to the point where it's not recognizable."
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Iraq Pullout - "Are we watching the same *blanking* war?" (7/31/07)
If we started today it would take 1 year to get 150,000 troops out of Iraq. You need a political solution before you pull out. He would separate the parties and put them in their own locations.
1.) Begin to draw down troops now, 2.) remove most of combat troops by March of 2008.
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| 3. |
A Plan to Hold Iraq Together (7/13/07)
An article written by Biden about how to keep Iraq together.
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Senator Joe Biden's Response to Nunh Speech (10/25/07)
Biden's says that a civil war in Iraq is very likely.
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Iraq's Future and America's Interests (10/15/07)
A speech from Biden about Iraq. "If we deal with it successfully, we can recover the freedom, flexibility and credibility to meet these other challenges." - Biden
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Turning the Corner in Iraq (10/15/07)
A speech Biden gave to the Council on Foreign Relations.
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The Way Forward in Iraq: Avoiding Partition, Preserving Unity, Protecting America's Interests (10/15/07)
"I start from this hard truth: President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. His strategy is to prevent defeat and to hand the problem off to his successor. Meanwhile, the frustration of Americans is mounting so fast that Congress might end up mandating a rapid withdrawal, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos, and a civil war that could become a regional war." - Joseph Biden
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Joe Biden on CNBC (10/15/07)
Biden talks about the surge isn't really working.
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![[candidate image]](images/21/21.jpg)
