Biden promotes Iraq strategy

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday "there are not 12 Republican senators that support the president" on his handling of the war in Iraq.

In Las Vegas to sign his new book and talk to potential participants in Nevada's January presidential caucus, the presidential candidate told supporters it is important for Democrats "to force as many votes as possible" on war-related legislation in the Senate.

If Republicans continue to support their party's leader rather than their true positions when voting on war issues, Biden said, they will face increased public pressure and run the risk of being voted out of office. The more votes taken, Biden said, the more likely it is that Republicans will reflect the public's views on the unpopular war and Democrats will gain the 67 votes needed to override a veto by President Bush and end the war.

Currently, Biden said he is only sure of 50 votes in the Senate for winding down the war. At 64, the six-term senator has been in the Senate for 35 years, longer than all but four others.

Biden wants most U.S. troops out of Iraq by summer 2008, with "a residual force to keep Iraqis and their neighbors honest."

About 75 people at the Border's bookstore at Lake Mead and Rainbow boulevards listened to Biden's 20 minute remarks and then waited patiently in line to have him autograph his book, "Promises to Keep," which is now on the New York Times best-seller list.

One of those on hand was Bob Knipes, a 75-year-old retiree who used to work at the Nevada Test Site.

"Joe seems to be the only guy on hand who knows what's going on in Iraq," Knipes said. "Every time I hear him talk on TV news programs I'm more impressed. He knows those people over there have been feuding for centuries. I only hope he has a plan to really get us out of there."

Biden bills himself as the only candidate with a strategy to end the war. Under his plan, which would have international involvement, Iraq would be divided into autonomous regions for the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, and held together by a limited federal government.

That would not be a U.S. imposition, Biden argues, because Iraq's constitution provides for a decentralized federal system. The central government would be responsible for the fair distribution of oil revenues among the three parties, and for border security.

According to Biden, the U.S. role to end the war in Iraq would be similar to its role in Bosnia, which was torn apart by ethnic cleansing in 1995. Then, he noted, the United States helped negotiate accords that kept the nation together by allowing the Muslims, Croats and Serbs autonomy with power-sharing.

With an international peacekeeping force, Biden said, Bosnia has been largely stable, with no U.S. deaths.

President Bush's current surge policy in Iraq, Biden said, has no hope for success because it does not take into account the political situation within Iraq.

As soon as U.S. troops end their stepped-up combat efforts, he said, the unrest between factions will begin again.

Retiree Polly Kelley, a former registered Republican who showed up to listen to Biden, said the senator's experience in the White House "is needed." The country, she said, cannot afford to again put someone in the nation's highest office with no foreign policy background.

"We can't have another Bush," she said. "We need someone who makes sense."