Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

Of course, it's imperative that we stabilize Iraq and quickly reduce our armed role there.

On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq, [Bush's] assumptions and policies have been wrong. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw.

The United States must reach out to the world community with a new plan to stabilize Iraq, bring U.N. peacekeepers in, and bring U.S. troops home.

Military activities (are) not a role for the United States. There needs to be a number of steps that Maliki and his government must take to demonstrate that he is committed to an inclusive Iraq, something he has not done up to date.

Iraq is part of a legitimate American effort not to have democracy everywhere but to have democracy somewhere.

One of the enduring mysteries of America's occupation of Iraq is why a nation that so little relishes peacekeeping nonetheless refuses to turn the job over to the United Nations.

We owe our troops more than rhetoric; we owe them a real plan. The Administration has yet to put forward a strategy for achieving stability in Iraq, ending the conflict, and handing over sovereignty to the people of Iraq and the new Iraqi government.

We are not going to abandon Iraq.

The U.S. cannot impose freedom, security, and unity in Iraq by force.

I saw the president make the tough calls in the Situation Room - and today, our troops in Iraq have finally come home so America can do some nation building here at home. That was the change that we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

My goal in Baghdad was to facilitate a debate here in the United States on America's policy toward Iraq, a debate that's been sadly lacking.

I applaud President Obama's decision to begin a partial withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan. However, I believe that we must go further and have a full withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops.

Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake.

I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place

The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace is real and serious

Within 120 days, we’ll win this war and get all U.S. troops out of the country, except 30,000

America has wearied of Middle East War.

I think any of us who have been involved in the mission of Iraq have developed a great deal of affection for the Iraqi people and are emotionally invested in what we think is a vital mission... So I think any of my contemporaries would welcome the opportunity to go back and make a contribution to this extraordinarily important mission.

America's foreign policy lacks the backbone to do the right thing in Afghanistan - which is leave.

I'm not willing to commit American taxpayers' money anymore or American troops on the ground in another Middle Eastern country.

Iraq deals with the United States regardless of who is in the White House.

Democrats proposing failure in Iraq by withdrawing.

George W. Bush made the agreement about when American troops would leave Iraq, not Barack Obama.

Secretary Clinton is talking about taking out ISIS. "We will take out ISIS." Well, President Obama and Secretary Clinton created a vacuum the way they got out of Iraq, because they got out - what, they shouldn't have been in, but once they got in, the way they got out was a disaster. And ISIS was formed.

I think the President's decision to withdraw the United States, to keep a campaign promise in Iraq, without leaving a stay-behind force was a mistake, and I hear that from veterans in Wyoming and from parents who lost children fighting in Iraq. We're seeing it, though, around the world. When we, the United States leads a vacuum anywhere, that emboldens others to go in, when there is no sense of deterrence by the United States that lets bad actors move and fill the void.