Following is a transcript by The New York Times of an interview with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. after his meetings in Baghdad and the change of mission ceremony at Camp Victory on Sept. 1. The questions by Michael R. Gordon are paraphrased.
Q.
Clearly, there are ways in which the United States may help Iraq develop. But why is it in the U.S. interest to have a strategic relationship with Iraq? Would it help the United States in containing Iranian ambition or having access to energy supplies or security in the gulf?
A.
I think it does pieces of all of that. Let me take you back. [Paul D.] Wolfowitz and I used to argue about this and talk about this, both in public fora and private dinners — only went to two together — and from the beginning, my argument was that once this commitment was made the best we can hope for — and I would take it in a heartbeat — was if there was a stable Iraq, not a threat to its neighbors, able to defend itself and able to provide for the economic needs of its people. That was to me that would be success. We ain’t there yet.
The reason why I think that has been important — you know, I was just rereading [Francis] Fukuyama’s now-new old book and the debate among the neocons. I never bought the domino theory, that somehow we were going to have these dominos of democracy that were all going to fall. Building democracies is hard goddamn internal work. It relates to institutions. It does not lend itself to military possibilities. But what it does do, if we end up with a stable Iraq, what it does, it sort of takes one sort of pinball out of the rattling that goes around here in the Middle East.
It would allow us to continue to have a relationship with a country whose interest would not be destabilizing the region. And possibly — possibly — be, I won’t say an anchor, but a little bit of an anchor in a region that is just totally unstable. I see over a long period of time the hope that rests in the Middle East is that, sort of a piece at a time, you start to stabilize the region.
So this is the second most dangerous region in the world — I still think the subcontinent is the most dangerous region — it just diminishes the prospect, somewhat between marginally and noticeably, that bad things will happen that pull us, suck us in the region. But I don’t see it as sort of a launching pad to take on Iran. I don’t see it as sort of a near-term precursor of the emergence of democracies in these oligarchs that surround it. If anything, the emergence of a democracy initially may cause a little bit of anxiety in the region from Saudi Arabia to the Emirates.
Q.
Is it important that Iraq become a democracy?
A.
It is important that it become a democracy because that is the only vehicle by which you can hold together such a diverse population that has such a history and inclination to actually be at each other’s throats. Otherwise, what you do is you end up having something in the form of an authoritarian government that just builds hostility, and eventually it will explode, implode. And so that’s why the democracy is important, in my view, here in Iraq, because there are, you have the Sunni-Shia split, but you got the Arab-Kurd split. You have got further sub-splits within the Kurdish region. And so what happens is if they all think they have a piece of the action, if they all think they are better served by being part of this larger whole, then from the Kurds and their inclination and desire to sort of rectify 1921 to the Sunnis, who feel they, that they are a minority in Iraq, but a majority in the region … All of those inclinations get, not subsumed, but get buffered when it is a democracy. Democracy in the sense that there is a political outlet for their aspirations, not a physical need for an outlet. That is kind of how I view it.
Q.
Is the Obama administration willing to maintain a limited U.S. military presence in Iraq after the Status of Forces agreement if the new Iraqi government requests such assistance?
A.
It would depend on what was asked, and it would obviously be considered just like we have similar arrangements with a whole lot of other countries. We do think it is important that they end up in a position of eventually being able to actually generate and execute based on their own intelligence, that they are able to have an air force to protect their airspace and that they have physical capacity to maintain control and use more sophisticated equipment. But the first thing we got to make clear to the Iraqi people, because it goes to motivation, is that we have to make clear we stand ready to meet the absolute letter of the agreement. Our intention now is that we will be out completely. It has been made clear in a thousand ways that if in fact there are residual needs — nothing like 50,000 troops or 30,000 troops or 20,000 troops staying in Iraq — if there is a residual need for training and helping them further refine their command and control, I am sure we would entertain that. And we would look to, you know, our military, the Pentagon to give us an assessment, the intelligence community, as to what that capability was and how much of a reach or a lift that would be. The interesting thing to me, Michael, is that every time I have been to Iraq — every time since the election, not since being sworn in, I think I’ve been here six times — in talking to [Gen.] Ray [Odierno], Ray keeps making the point that this has just been a progressive evolution that where he has real confidence in their special forces and he has increasing confidence in the capacity of the force. The one caveat … I have ever heard him express about the capability, competence and continued competence and the ability to handle all that a modern military of this size has to handle is that there has been a budget freeze on the top number. They have not been bringing in new troops on an attrition basis…. At some point they are going to have to make a hard decision … whether they want an army of 168,000 or 165,000 people or they only need an army the size of 100,000 people or whatever the number is.
So a lot is going to be determined by their judgment as to what they need for their security, for their stability. The one thing I hope is not true, though I acknowledge to you that it could be true, could end up being the case, I think that they and we have made significant inroads into Al Qaeda Iraq. And Al Qaeda Iraq’s interest and desire in continuing to try to nurture the soil here has been most directly related to our presence here, I would argue…. If Al Qaeda Iraq continues to be unable to regenerate sectarian violence, there is not a big place for them to go, in my view. This would not be the biggest investment, in my view….
The next place, Michael, that I think is a real test here, is not the formation of the government, I think that is going to occur. But I have been in constant contact — I mean, not just these trips I’ve made — I am on the phone every single week to one or multiple Iraqi players as well as our folks here. I still think that they are going to be able to form a government that is representative and can hold together. But then they go to tackle some really hard problems: the disputed internal boundary, Kirkuk, a simple thing as the census, what they are going to do about the oil law. If they make it through that — that is where I view the next big test. Obviously, formation of the government is a test, but the next big test that you are going to sort of quantify the results, if they make it through those things that have been put on hold to conduct the last election and form a government, they are just in the background, then I think the inclination, the feeding ground for Al Qaeda and the extremists, this is not the most potent place to be.
I worry about Somalia. I worry about other parts of the Arabian Peninsula. I worry, you know, about Africa. That is where you would see a lot more fertile ground. It depends upon the formation of the government, whether or not it is functional enough that it can take on what are big remaining issues. I mean, they are not small-bore stuff. If they get by that phase, I don’t think three years, five years from now you are going to be writing about or are going to be talking much about Al Qaeda Iraq. You will still be going to be talking about Al Qaeda. You will still be talking about Al Qaeda spinoffs, but I think we will be talking about them in East Africa, in the Gulf of Aden. I think we will be talking about them in a different part of the world, not so much here.
Q.
So will the Obama administration keep forces in Iraq after 2011 if the Iraqis ask?
A.
I don’t think there is anything we won’t entertain…. But I think it is very important at the front end of this to build the kind of confidence of the Iraqis — Look, everybody talks about — I try not to do it, but I do — watch the shout shows and the cable stuff, not everybody but a lot of it … I keep hearing about how the Iraqis don’t want us to leave. Every single poll in this country for the last five years has said, by the way, two-thirds-plus of the Iraqi people want us to leave. So we got to convince them that we mean what we said. It was a big step, Bush making that commitment for us to get out of the cities.
That transformed, I think, the relationship. That’s one of the reasons why we have got so much cooperation from the Iraqi military, from the Iraqi civilian side, from the M.O.D. [Ministry of Defense] and M.O.I. [Ministry of the Interior]. It was like, “Son of a bitch, they are not here, they are not taking our oil.” The contracts, we have not been the main beneficiary of the opening up of these new oil fields, and ironically, there is a positive side to that. People go, “Whoa, guess these guys are a little different.”
So I think the last step of that is saying, “We’re leaving. You want to ask us for something. You can ask us. And we’ll look at it then.” And I think it would be counterproductive and not helpful to build that kind of confidence for the vice president, who — quote — has been the point man in Iraq, to say we assume that.
Q.
It was envisioned that the Iraqis would have a government in place well before August 2010. The initial assumption was that the election was to take place in January, and U.S. military planners assumed it would take 60 days allotted for government formation. Instead, the parliamentary election took place in March and more than five months later a government has yet to be formed. Are the Obama administration’s military strategy and Iraq’s political evolution beginning to diverge a little bit, and what is the administration doing to move the politics along?
A.
No. 1, I don’t accept the premise. The difference between the first election and the second election … is there is actually a functioning caretaker government. And in this process of this, quote, uptick of violence they also got their own intelligence now, got the top two Al Qaeda people and killed them. In the meantime, it has taken, probably taken, three to four months for the remnants of Al Qaeda to put together those 12 attacks. In that process, although I don’t want to sound like I am being dismissive, the average deaths for each of those attack was three. They end up at a point that the size and capacity of the munitions, they used to use 250-pound bombs, they now use 10-pound bombs.
It took that insurgency a hell of a long time to coordinate and plan, which they did, something that was in relative terms a bust for them. The reason why I think there is an uptick in the violence — and I seem to attract attention when I am in the Green Zone — is because this is a time where they have to try to make a statement. But what happened is, the difference is that there is actually a military that is able to function and provide security, notwithstanding the government hasn’t been formed yet. And so that is the reason why Odierno and these guys have the confidence even though the government is not formed.
Now if, in fact, you could come up with a scenario where if six months from now it is still not formed, then everything begins, then the worry I have in that circumstance is not so much that you know Al Qaeda Iraq will be emboldened and reconstituted. My worry will be that generals in the military will start saying: “Wait a minute, which way is this going to go? Which way is this going to go?” I worry then that it goes from right now everybody saying, “Salute Iraq” to “Whoa, let’s figure this out.” And what is now a unified command, what is now an integrated military, including some of the pesh merga, including some of the Sons of Iraq. That’s when I would begin to worry because then everybody might start to say: “What’s my calculus here? It looks like they are not going to pull this together.”
But I think we are far from that. And what is interesting to me is, and I am no great key to this, that we have been deeply involved with each of the parties from the day after the election results came in. I have spoken with, met with, had lengthy phone calls with, made suggestions to, transfer messages from, [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-] Maliki a dozen times. [Ayad] Allawi, [Massoud] Barzani has like become my pen pal. Everyone from Barham Salih for information to [Jalal] Talabani, who is interesting, to [Ammar al-] Hakim. These have not been occasional, this has been constant.
Q.
And what are they asking you to do?
A.
…. Bottom line is that I am convinced that each of the aspirants for the premiership, the presidency, this new national security council apparatus, the speaker of the COR [Council of Representatives], they have understandably, like any political outfit, they have gone out and tried to put together and cobble together how they get the 163 votes, and they are each beginning to run into certain deadends. And they are kind of running the string. And it is becoming every week more apparent, in my view, where they are going to have to go to really make some real compromises. And they are going to have to make some tough decisions, literally about putting the interest of the country ahead of whether an individual is premier or whatever job. And one of the things that impresses me, and I really mean this in a literal sense, because I have known some of these guys seven and a half years, is that I am absolutely convinced that every single entity wants the United States to stay engaged, wants a future arrangement with the United States, except the Sadrists. They all see that interest. And interestingly enough, they have all become, as they realize that it is possible, increasingly nationalistic.
They have inclinations toward Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Amman or Tehran, but it really is discernible. It’s like: “Whoa. You mean to tell me that I may be able to have freedom of action and my folks ain’t gonna be in trouble and I don’t have to give my passport to Tehran? …” I mean, it is interesting to watch.
And I am going to say something outrageous. One of the things I am fairly good at after all these years is figuring out other guys’ motivation when you sit in front of him, and I have met with them so many times that I literally believe there is a marked change in how they started off viewing, these leaders, their relationship with the United States and their future relationship, and their relationship with the neighboring countries.
That is why I think that they are getting down to a place where I predict and I hope — and hope …the wish is the father of the thought, I think that is how it goes — but I really think you are going to see a government where everybody has a piece of the action. It started with Sistani, Sistani saying at the front end of this that the Sunnis have to be in the deal. That was a big deal. The inability of the Shia with Iranian influence to have a joint coalition that were going to dominate, the willingness of the Kurds, there is something happening here . It is positive and I don’t think that the lack of the formation of a government has in fact in any literal sense run counter to the military judgment of drawing down to 50,000 troops. And the bottom line is there are a lot of badass 50,000 troops that are left. These guys can shoot straight. Fifty thousand troops in a country is still a big, big, big contingent.
Q.
What about the U.S. proposal that a political council with binding authority could be part of the political formula, and maybe the prime minister would diminish in power with a political council? What is the status of this proposal, and can it break the political deadlock in Iraq?
A.
I think two things are going to be necessary …. The answer is that I think they have all concluded it is in their mutual interest for different reasons to, in effect, effectively legislate the powers of the prime minister, devolve some of the powers of the prime minister, of the premiership. I think there is a growing awareness that there is a need for something akin to our National Security Council with, I mean, as an independent unit that serves some of the functions the Council of Ministers served before.
For two reasons. One to sort of balance the powers, but also provide landing spots for the number of serious people who have to occupy serious ministries. And I do think that they realize — a point I made to Hakim today and I made to everyone — that when they form a government, obviously, a major element of that is going to be the ministries.
And that I think they are all aware that the allocation of ministries sort of à la Afghanistan, based on political loyalty, is a death knell for them in their own interest, that they all are aware there is a need for competency here. So I think those sort of strings, those sort of elements are emerging, where again, for simple selfish reasons, I think right now whether it is INA [Iraqi National Alliance], SOL [State of Law coalition], the Kurdish Alliance or Iraqiya, they all figure that their best shot with the constituency they want to promote and protect is in the deal together. That is what I think is a big motivating piece.