Transcript
SENATOR BIDEN: To state the obvious, ladies and gentlemen, this is a time of tremendous challenge for America and the world. We must contend with an ongoing war in Afghanistan, genocide in Darfur, the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, the rise of China, and the reemergence of Russia, the growing insecurity of our energy supply, the fragility of our climate, and the threat posed by radical fundamentalism. But there is one issue that dominates our national debate today, and it is Iraq.
If we deal with Iraq successfully, we can recover the freedom, the flexibility, and the credibility to meet more aptly these other challenges that I have just mentioned. That is what I want to talk to you about today, Iraq.
Listen to the debate about Iraq here in Washington. It centers in my view on a false choice that is also a bad choice. We either continue on President Bush's failing course and hand off Iraq to the next president, or what we do is we just leave and we hope for the best. I believe there is a better choice. I believe it is still possible to bring our troops home without having traded a dictator for chaos, a chaos that engulfs Iraq and quite possibly spreads to the Middle East. Ladies and gentlemen, this must be our goal, leaving Iraq without leaving behind chaos. Leaving Iraq is necessary, but it is not a plan.
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