Atlantic News Telegraph - Biden: Bring Troops Home, Work with European Leaders to Prevent Regional War

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Atlantic News Telegraph - Biden: Bring Troops Home, Work with European Leaders to Prevent Regional War

Presidential Candidate Joe Biden would use Bosnia as a template for solving the war in Iraq if he became President of the United States.

Biden, who visited Atlantic on Thursday at noon at the Family Table Restaurant, said he would abandon the notion of a "central government" in Iraq, instead having a federal system, such as the one in Bosnia, with partial self governing regions. He would draw down troops, only keeping enough to protect the borders of the country and to train Iraq forces to take over security.

Biden disagreed that Iran would immediate swoop in to take over Iraq if the U.S. left, because he said Iran has nine Shiite provinces, and within those provinces, at least four militias, are fighting between each other.

"Iran would have to make a choice," Biden said, explaining those groups would have fight each other for control before fighting for Iraq. After that, they may have to fight Turkey for control of Iraq because Turkey may want to take over the country as well.

Biden also planned to work with the leaders of European countries to make a plan to prevent a possible regional war following his troop change. He said, as Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, he has met with "European Powers" and asked if he was the president, and brought them to together to work out a plan to prevent a regional war in the area, would they do so? Biden said at least one person at that meeting responded this way, "I would say, ‘What took you so long, Mr. President?'"

Biden called the president's policy in Iraq, "flawed," and "losing," and predicted the country would be "bogged down for 10 years" in the war, and it would cost "billions of dollars."

"There is no stability in Iraq, and there's no way to get there with the president's policy," Biden said. "I guarantee, if I'm president, I will end this war, and end it in a way without leaving a regional war behind."

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