Joe Biden: “we will hear a lot, today and this week, of phrases such as ``last best chance,'' ``refuse to endorse an alternative…”

“we will hear a lot, today and this week, of phrases such as ``last best chance,'' ``refuse to endorse an alternative plan,'' ``Iraq is a central front of the war on terror.'' Virtually no one subscribes to any of those three points--all of the experts who have given testimony, the Iraqi Study Group, the plans that have been put forward that are real alternatives. The President has not put forward a plan. He has put forward a tactic, a tactic that most experts, including his own military, think will make a plan for success less likely to be able to be arrived at. No one in this Senate, at least in this debate, at least from my perspective, is calling for us cutting and running--none of that. I hope we keep our eye focused, our eye on the ball. The Senate is today taking a first step toward a bipartisan effort to prevent the escalation of a war in Iraq and to adapt a strategy for Iraq for leaving Iraq without leaving behind chaos. The first step is to debate and vote the resolution offered by Senator Warner and reintroduced by Senator Levin and me as a bill. That says the Senate disagrees with the President's plan to send 17,500 more American troops into the middle of a city of over 6.2 million people in the midst of a civil war, because what we are afraid of is that the Senator from Texas may be right; this may make things so bad that everyone will conclude there is no more chance of succeeding. We have vital interests in that region.…”