Ex-UN weapons inspector: Biden's Iraq war vote excuse a 'bald-faced lie'

Pushback with Aaron Mate

Pushback with Aaron Maté

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4.7 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2020

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

On the campaign trail, Joe Biden is falsely claiming that he opposed the Iraq war when it began. Biden says that his 2002 war authorization vote was not intended to approve the 2003 invasion, but instead to ensure UN inspections. "It's a completely disingenuous statement," says Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq who testified before Biden in the U.S. Senate. "Joe Biden, from the very beginning, was a proponent of regime change in Iraq." Guest: Scott Ritter. Former UN Weapons Inspector, former Marine Corps Intelligence Officer, and author of "Dealbreaker: Donald Trump and the Unmaking of the Iran Nuclear Deal." Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Pushback on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pushbackshow Aaron Maté on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronjmate

Transcript

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0:00.0	At the Democratic presidential debate in Iowa, Joe Biden said that he never intended
0:09.0	to authorize the Iraq war when he voted for it back in 2002.
0:14.5	Joe and I listened to what Dick Cheney and George Bush and Rumsfeld had to say, I thought they were lying.
0:22.7	I didn't believe them for a moment.
0:24.5	I took to the floor.
0:25.7	I did everything I could to prevent that war.
0:28.9	Joe saw it differently.
0:29.9	Vice President Biden.
0:30.9	I was asked to bring 156,000 troops home from that war, which I did.
0:35.6	I led that effort.
0:36.6	It was a mistake to trust that
0:38.3	they weren't going to go to war. They said they were not going to go to war. They said they were just going to get inspectors in. The world, in fact, voted to send inspectors in and they still went to war. From that point on, I was in the position of making the case that it was a big, big mistake and from from that point on, I voted to, I moved to bring those troops home.
0:57.0	But Biden's explanation that he just wanted to authorize UN weapons inspectors, not a war,
1:03.0	is undermined by his own statements.
1:05.0	Speaking in July 2003, months after the U.S. invaded Iraq,
1:10.0	Biden praised then-President George W. Bush and said he would
1:14.3	have voted the exact same way. Some of my own party have said that it was a mistake to go to Iraq in
1:20.6	the first place and believe that it's not worth the cost, whatever benefit may flow from our
1:27.2	engagement in Iraq. But the cost of not
1:30.8	acting against Saddam, I think, would have been much greater. And so is the cost, and so will be the
1:37.7	cost, of not finishing this job. The President of the United States is a bold leader and he is popular.
1:47.0	Nine months ago, I voted with my colleagues to give the President of the United States of America
	...

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