Joe Biden attacks John McCain's judgment
The GOP candidate is wrong to call Iraq the central front in the war on terrorism, says Barack Obama's running mate, in Ohio: 'We can't afford a commander in chief so divorced from reality.'
WASHINGTON — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden today questioned whether Republican John McCain has the judgment to be commander in chief, saying the Arizona senator has been wrong on "the most critical national security issues of our time."
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told an audience in Cincinnati that the United States "is less secure and more isolated than it has been at any time in recent history."
Biden said that McCain continues to insist "against all the evidence and all the facts that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism." Noting that the "people who actually attacked us on 9/11" are still living in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Biden said, "John is more than wrong -- he is dangerously wrong. On a question so basic, so fundamental, so critical to our nation's security, we can't afford a commander in chief so divorced from reality."
Promising that Obama "will end this war -- and end it in a responsible way," Biden said that McCain's key misjudgment is to think that "six years into the war in Iraq, we should keep spending $10 billion a month at a time Iraq is running an $80-billion surplus."
Biden called McCain "the odd man out," the only major figure in Washington who has not endorsed some framework for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said that if U.S. intelligence knows where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are headquartered, then the United States should focus on taking them out.
"Mark my words: If, God forbid, there is another major attack on America, it will not come from Iraq," Biden said. "It will almost certainly come from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border -- where the Bush-McCain approach let down our guard and let our enemies off the hook.
"And unlike John McCain -- who opposed Barack Obama's call to take out the high-level terrorist targets in Pakistan and called it 'bombing our ally' -- we will not tolerate a terrorist sanctuary in Pakistan," Biden said.
Defending Obama's call for talks with Iran, Biden questioned McCain's statement that "there is nothing to talk about with Tehran" and said, "That's not putting country first. That's putting politics first." Saying that five former secretaries of State, including Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell, have argued for diplomatic efforts with Iran, Biden said, "John McCain is the only one who doesn't get it."
