Part II of our series on Joe Biden and the political skeletons in his closet Joe Biden presents himself as an empathetic guy who is willing to go the extra mile to help people overcome their personal tragedies.
However, Biden has throughout his career endorsed policies that caused countless personal tragedies for millions of people.
The best example is his support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
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.
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: nytimes.com] In 2002, Biden was riding high, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his 30th year in the Senate.
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.[1]
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.
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.[2]
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.
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.[3]
The New Republic termed Biden “the Democratic Party’s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.”
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