Biden: ‘I would move to impeach him’

BIDEN:  Let me tell you what I think it's about.  I can't prove it.  I think it's about our ability to try to dominate that region of the world and control oil.  I don't think we went to war because of oil, but I think there was an absolute belief.  The only thing I can fit together with Cheney and his gang is that they went to war and they're smarter than they're acting.  They're smarter than they're acting.  They went to war in the hope they would be able to do two things.  One, have a government that sat on a whole bunch of oil that still exists in the world that would be indebted to us. Two, have permanent military bases in Iraq to dominate that part of the world to be able to control oil.  Not to go steal it for American oil companies, but to be able to control the pricing, control the access of it, a very Machiavellian view.  There's nothing idealistic about Cheney.

I don't know what President Bush thinks, but I think he's bought hook, line and sinker the Cheney rationale that the only way for us to be able to be dominant in the 21^st century is to use our overwhelming power in the face of the moral disapprobation of the rest of the world, threaten the rest of the world, and that's how we avoid war in the future.

I think these guys are irresponsible.  But the thing that angers me the most and it angers me, Chris, is how incomprehensible it is for anyone to think that the president did not know that his intelligence agencies didn't believe what he was saying.  I believe that's why these guys came out with now 16 American intelligence agencies uniting, saying, I'm not going to wear the jacket again on this one.

And I disagree with only one thing that Andrea (Mitchell) said.  The intelligence community didn't misread what was going on in a major way in Iraq; they misused the intelligence they were given.

MATTHEWS:  I keep waiting for that second part of that intelligence analysis to show how it was manipulated.  But I want to ask you about something you've been involved with.  You said that if the president of the United States had launched an attack on Iran without congressional approval, that would have been an impeachable offense.

BIDEN:  Absolutely.

MATTHEWS:  Do you want to review that comment you made?  Well, how do you stand on that now? 

BIDEN:  Yes, I do.  I want to stand by that comment I made.  The reason I made the comment was as a warning.  I don't say those things lightly, Chris.  You've known me for a long time.  I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for 17 years, or its ranking member.  I teach separation of powers and constitutional law.  This is something I know.

So I got together and brought a group of constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I'm going to deliver to the whole United States Senate, pointing out the president has no constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people, unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. 

And if he does, I would move to impeach him.  The House obviously has to do that, but I would lead an effort to impeach him.

The reason for my doing that and I don't say it lightly.  I don't say it lightly.  I say it because they should understand that what they were threatening, what they were saying, what was adding up to be what looked like to the rest of the world what we were about to do would be the most disastrous thing that could be done at this moment in our history that I can think of.

MATTHEWS:  OK.  You know, Senator, the great thing about you being elected to the Senate when you were about 29 years old is that you were a senator back when there were real senators there, like Wayne Morse and J. William Fulbright, who understood the constitutional importance of what you just said.  I wonder whether a lot of people who watch this show don't even get what you're talking about.  They don't even remember when there were senators that understood the checks and balances of our government, of our Constitution.  I am so impressed you said it.

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