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James baker says iraq cities are mixed sunni shiite { April 29 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18381961/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18381961/
MTP Transcript for April 29, 2007
'Meet the Candidate': Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.
Updated: 1:03 p.m. ET April 29, 2007
MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Our Meet the Candidates 2008 series continues, an exclusive interview with Democrat Joe Biden. He has represented the state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 34 years. In January he became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president in 1988. This morning Joe Biden joins us live only on MEET THE PRESS.
Welcome, Senator Biden, to our Meet the Candidates series.
SEN. JOE BIDEN, (D-DE): Good to be back.
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MR. RUSSERT: The Iraq Study Group said that your idea of partitioning Iraq is, is wrong, and...
SEN. BIDEN: Well...
MR. RUSSERT: ...and, and would, and would result in even wider civil war. James Baker, the chairman of that committee, said that he’s talked to experts and they believe it would trigger a, quote, a “huge civil war.” Major cities are mixed between the Shiites and the Sunnis and that basically your plan just wouldn’t work.
SEN. BIDEN: Basically, Baker’s in a minority. Henry Kissinger’s signed onto that plan. Madeleine Albright has signed onto the plan. If you look at the Baker report, it goes on to say “We may get where Biden is talking about.” Guess what? We’re getting there. What is this administration implicitly acknowledging by building a wall? Give me a break. They’re building a wall, and they’re talking about a centralized government? Now, look, Tim, you know what happened in the Balkans. Once there was an agreement reached as to this—political agreement reached as to the separation of the parties, from Brcko to Sarajevo to Srebrenica, there was an incredible diminution in the internecine warfare. Why? Because we’re in the context of an overall political settlement. What this is all about is maneuvering each of these groups to determine who is going to call the shots. Once you’ve laid that out and you put yourself in a position where—look, there’s never been a time in history that I can think of, Tim, where there’s been a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian violence that has ended even remotely reasonably without a federated system. Never. What makes Jim Baker and everyone else think that this is going to be the first time in history that it’s different? And mark my words, everybody’s coming in the direction that I’m talking about. There’s an inevitability to it.
© 2007 MSNBC.com
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