http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071130/NEWS08/311300082/-1/news01Biden says focus on Iran has gone overboard
Published: Friday, November 30, 2007
By ALBERT McKEON
Telegraph Staff
NASHUA – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned that if the Bush administration goes to war with Iran, Congress should impeach the president.
The Delaware senator said under current circumstances, the president lacks Constitutional authority to attack Iran. He also criticized Republican and Democratic presidential candidates for their "fixation" on what he called Iran's limited nuclear weapons capabilities.
"Yet Pakistan is (bustling) with nuclear weapons," Biden said Thursday in an interview with The Telegraph editorial board.
President Bush hasn't made Pakistan a foreign policy priority despite its most recent constitutional crisis and its advanced nuclear weapons program, Biden said. The threat of Iran dominates political talk, even though the country has the capability to create only one atomic bomb, he said.
Biden used the Pakistan-Iran dichotomy as a springboard to promote his foreign-policy experience. He said that during the recent crisis, he was "the first" to speak with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, but Bush hadn't called them.
"We've had a pro-Musharraf policy, but we haven't had a Pakistan policy," Biden said.
He proposed keeping Pakistan in check by threatening to halt its purchases of U.S. weaponry and to "put the screws on" the new Army chief, a pro-western figure, to keep the country's nuclear weapons in safe hands.
Biden also called for federalizing Iraq. The plan would limit the central government in Baghdad to oil revenue distribution and would allow Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis to control their respective regions. Biden promised to pull the U.S. military out of Iraq within a year of taking office.
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and largely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable presidential candidates in that field, said he was qualified to be president because the next leader "needs the competence to act quickly."
Despite polls that typically have Biden at the tail end of the Democratic pack, he said he envisions finishing in the top three in the Iowa caucus and building on that momentum. He has said if he doesn't place in the top three in Iowa, he will have to drop out.
Despite top-tier candidates raising "obscene" amounts of money, their poll numbers have remained static and have created good news for a Biden campaign that has a buzz of movement, he said.
"If I spent 10 to 12 million and still hit 20 to 23 percent (in a poll), I'd be scared," he said of his top rivals. He added, "They've hit their ceiling."
Biden also outlined part of his domestic agenda, with health-care reform topping the list. He proposed a four-pronged plan, costing up to $100 billion and financed largely by rolling back the Bush tax cut to the top one percent income earners.
The Biden plan would insure all children, provide catastrophic coverage to everyone, offer an insurance program that mirrors that of federal government employees and encourage preventative health practices and modernization of the industry, he said. The buy-in program would cover the uninsured on a sliding payment scale, he said.
On immigration, Biden said, "It's not racist to say we have to protect the borders." He added that 60 percent of undocumented workers are from countries other than Mexico.
Illegal immigrants should receive a tamper-proof identification card, learn English, undergo criminal background checks and pay owed taxes over time to walk the path to citizenship, Biden said. And companies should face stiffer penalties for hiring illegal immigrants, he said.
Additionally, the U.S. should put pressure on the Mexican government to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, Biden said. As long as there is a sizable disparity in income and other quality of life issues between Mexico and the U.S., Mexicans will find America attractive, he said.
"It's not about fences. It's about opportunities."
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