Biden Urges Bush to Seek NATO Help on Iraq

WASHINGTON - President Bush should present allied leaders with a plan next week to send a NATO force to Iraq, Sen. Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday. Biden, of Delaware, who was recently in Baghdad for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, said a NATO force could take on one of three roles — protecting Iraq's borders, supplementing Polish troops in the South or guarding U.N. personnel from attack.

But Biden said the Bush administration has "not been getting it right from the beginning" in Iraq and the State Department, which he said should take the lead in enlisting NATO's help, has virtually abandoned the effort.

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Biden, who traveled to Iraq with Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Bush was planning to "pull back" in Iraq after sovereignty is returned to Iraqis June 30 and that this would create a vacuum that Iraqi security forces are incapable of filling.

"I think it is a political decision, and I think it is a mistake," Biden said. He said there were comparable U.S. buildups in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. "We have got to get serious about it," he said. "We are playing into the hands of the insurgents." But, Biden said, the Pentagon wants to get U.S. troops "out of harm's way" and the administration "seems to be internally paralyzed."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=4&u=/ap/20040623/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us

train wreck.

Don't muddy the waters for Kerry. He's gonna have a big enough mess on his hands.

Why can't that monkey just keep spewing the shit we like to hear and continue to do nothing as usual.

not to allow media to show coffins of our war dead.

that is the only way the US can show that the despicable acts and arrogant behavior that is reflected by the bush admin is NOT supported by the public at large. Until that happens, NATO should stand aside, imo.

more US soldiers and Iraqi citizens will die unnecessarily.

If the US wants NATO and the UN in then the bush administration has to totally cede all authority over to them, stop the building of the 14 bases and monster embassies, etc. No country is going to put their troops at risk to protect bush's colonial interests.

the 16 bases in iraq out.... .bush has no exit strategy....because he does not plan on exiting....this turn over is bs