Transcript for June 4

MR. RUSSERT: But aren’t these issues ones that the Republicans used successfully to demonstrate that the Democrats were out of sync on cultural and values, in that, in that degree?

SEN. BIDEN: I don’t know if they’ve used it successfully. A fascinating thing Katrina did. Katrina not only blew away the Gulf, it blew away the illusion that these guys were competently able to deal with the real problems that Americans face. And I think this just highlights the fact they have no intention, they have no plan, to deal with health care. They have no plan to deal with our national security. They have no plan to deal with the energy crisis. They have no—I mean, gasoline’s going up an incredible amount. I’ve got a bill, along with others, saying, look, make every single automobile company—by the year 2008 or 9, depending on which one you pick—have flex-fuel automobiles. Make every gas station in America have to have a flex-fuel pump. That would fundamentally begin to alter importation.

But no one wants to offend anybody. We don’t want to offend the oil companies. We don’t want to offend the auto workers. We don’t want to offend anybody. And what are we going to do? Because we don’t want to make any hard decisions, let’s go talk about gay marriage. I think it’s ridiculous.

MR. RUSSERT: Before we go, let me hook back around to Iraq and conclude our interview. If things are the way they are today a month from now, two months from now, three months from now, when, when and where do you draw the line? How much time?

SEN. BIDEN: I draw the line at the point where there is no reasonable prospect of me believing you can keep the country together. And that’s when this sectarian violence is so far out of hand that there is no possibility of keeping the country together.

MR. RUSSERT: And how close are we?

SEN. BIDEN: I think we’re perilously close. I think we...

MR. RUSSERT: Months?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, as I said to you last time I was on the show, I think the time that that’s going to be determined is whether or not they amend the Constitution, which is four more months after they, in fact, get in power, which has just begun now. And so I suspect that’s by the fall. We’re going to know whether there’s been any progress made or not. If there’s no progress made—and by the way, Tim, the other thing, pulling the troops out. My proposal calls for no troops there after the year 2007, other than an over-horizon force, and that is, that’s going to practically take that long for the military to do it.

MR. RUSSERT: But if you do get out, and the country just disintegrates...

SEN. BIDEN: It will.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and you have a haven for terrorism...

SEN. BIDEN: You do.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and for al-Qaeda.

SEN. BIDEN: You do.

MR. RUSSERT: What have you...

SEN. BIDEN: That’s why we...

MR. RUSSERT: What have you achieved?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, you—what you’ve done is you have put us in the position—this administration has—where you lose Iraq, you lose Afghanistan. Watch Afghanistan. Watch Afghanistan, and watch Musharraf after Afghanistan falls if we don’t get smart here. And what you end up with is you end up with trying to contain the policy. That’s what I’ve called for for over a year and a half, a regional conference. Get the permanent five of the United Nations to call for a regional conference of all the parties, set up a contact group, agree on a hands-off policy internally in Iraq so this doesn’t develop into a regional war. Nothing’s been done on any of this. There’s no forward thinking here.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you feel partially responsible?

SEN. BIDEN: No, I don’t. I, I’ve been laying out in detail, on your show and others, for three years how to approach this. And every single recommendation has been rejected. And I would respectfully suggest in almost every instance what I’ve said has turned out to be—end up being the case.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Joe Biden, as always we thank you for your views.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: Coming next, the man who led the pre-war inspections in Iraq has a new report on weapons of mass destruction worldwide.

And then our roundtable with John Harwood and Gwen Ifill. We’ll talk about Hillary Clinton’s Iraq war dilemma and a battleground seat in California—a traditionally Republican seat too close to call. All coming up right here on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: We’ll hear from the man who led the inspections in Iraq before the war, and then our political roundtable after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Dr. Hans Blix, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

DR. HANS BLIX: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: You chaired a committee and their report is out. “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms.” This is how some of the news reports characterize your report: “Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector, said that American unwillingness to cooperate in international arms agreements was undermining efforts to curb nuclear weapons.” Why blame the Americans?

DR. BLIX: Well, I think there was a disenchantment, a disillusionment in the United States after the Iraq war in 1990 and ‘91 at the international conventions and the inspections had not found out what was going on. And then they turned to the more military means, to what was called “counterproliferation.”

Now that we have now practiced counterproliferation in the Iraq—in the war of 2003 and I think we have now come to the conclusion that taking out weapons of mass destruction which didn’t exist by military force was not very successful. And maybe there is now an opportunity to again to see whether we can improve the international conventions like the treaty of the convention against nonproliferation. Strengthen the verification and strengthen the support for these treaties.

MR. RUSSERT: But isn’t there a consensus that North Korea and Iran just lied and deceived and cheated?

DR. BLIX: In the case of—yes. In both cases, actually, they were, they were cheating. But the—we did not have earlier the strong inspections which we—which the IAEA has got, got later. And in fact, the Iranians have gone back on, on permitting this on a voluntary basis because of the stress they feel, perceived they were subject to.

MR. RUSSERT: You also, you also wrote this, which was interesting to me. “The [Weapons of Mass Destruction] Commission rejects the suggestion that nuclear weapons in the hands of some pose no threat, while in the hands of others they place the world in mortal jeopardy.” Do you believe that the United States, France, Great Britain having nuclear weapons is an equal threat to North Korea and Iran having nuclear weapons?

DR. BLIX: We don’t compare whether it’s equal. We simply say that in the hands of anybody it is a threat. You have threats, as Senator Nunn will say here, you ought to take the weapon—nuclear weapons out of a hair-trigger alert because there can be mistakes and there can be misunderstandings. So they are dangerous. Whether in the hands of a reckless government or a reckless regime, yes it would be worse, clearly. But who is in control in the government in a particular case? You take Pakistan today. Well, we have a president who is trying to keep control, but what if there were another government in Pakistan? So I think they’re all dangerous. The weapons sit in Pakistan and they’re dangerous; they sit elsewhere and they’re dangerous.

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