Biden rebuts criticism of Iraq-decentralization plan

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) hit back Monday after Iraq’s prime minister and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad criticized his plan urging Iraq to pursue a decentralized and regionally based government.

{mosads}Biden’s non-binding proposal won 26 GOP votes on its way to approval as part of the defense authorization bill, which the Senate passed late Monday. Seeking momentum for his 2008 presidential bid as well as Democratic efforts on the war, Biden continued to bill his measure as a bipartisan slap to the Bush administration.

Biden deemed his amendment “a gigantic statement,” telling Bush: “‘Mr. President, your focus on providing for a strong central unity government and not doing anything to promote a federal system in Iraq is a mistake, and we fundamentally disagree with you.’”

Yet several of the Republicans who backed Biden’s plan last week downplayed its significance, emphasizing that the Iraqi government would have final say over its political future. After Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki denounced the decentralization push as “a catastrophe,” U.S. diplomats in Baghdad flanked him in a rare Sunday statement.

“Attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed,” the embassy in Baghdad said in a rare public statement on the Biden proposal.

Biden said he would send Iraqi leaders a copy of his plan, which is co-sponsored by fellow presidential hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), to underscore that decentralization does not equal partition of the country. The language appears to have struck a nerve among native Iraqis, some of whom view the Senate’s support as an imposition on their sovereignty.

Even as he sought to dispel misconceptions about his amendment, however, Biden lambasted the Maliki government and other Iraqi politicians for their response to it.

“For Maliki or Iraqi leaders to suggest [members of Congress] don’t have a right to express our opinion, I don’t know who the hell they think they are,” Biden said. “We have a right. The right is that we’ve expended our blood and treasure in order to back their commitment to their constitution.”

The Iraqi Constitution sets up a path to formation of federal regions, and its parliament approved a federalism law last fall. Still, Sunni lawmakers boycotted that approval vote and continue to fear that decentralization could encourage Iraqi Shiites to form regions that control the bulk of oil revenue.

The defense authorization, with Biden’s plan attached, passed 92-3 on Monday, although President Bush has threatened a veto based on a provision expanding the federal hate-crimes ban. Biden and Brownback, who have lobbied senior White House advisers on their political remedy for Iraq, also sent Bush a letter Monday asking for a meeting on the plan.

“A substantial majority of our colleagues supported this idea because it provides the best path to an Iraq that is stable and stays together, not a haven for terrorists and not a threat to its neighbors,” Biden and Brownback wrote.