Joe Biden's vote for the Iraq War in 2002 haunted him on the stage Tuesday night in Iowa. Sen. Bernie Sanders repeated the statement made by his campaign earlier this week that Biden voted for "the worst foreign policy blunder" in modern U.S. history. Sanders listed everything the Iraq War cost, both in terms of stark finances and human life. The way Sanders remembers it, he believed that Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials were "lying" when they were making a case for military force in Iraq, such as how intelligence told them that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
"I did everything I could to stop that war," Sanders said. "Joe saw it differently."
Sen. Sanders criticizes Joe Biden's decision to support the Iraq War: "The war in Iraq turned out to be the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country." pic.twitter.com/pQ4sQCDBUr
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 15, 2020
"I was asked to bring 156,000 troops home from that war," Biden responded. "Which I did. I led that effort. It was a mistake to trust that they were not going to go to war."
A senator at the time of the vote, Biden argued that he thought the vote was only to get Hussein to agree to inspections. But war, as we know, was declared. From that point on, Biden said, he made the case that it was a "big mistake" and he led the effort "to bring those troops home."
Yet, Biden's claim that he helped get over 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq had already received two Pinocchios from the Washington Post.
During Tuesday's brawl, Biden also claimed to have helped end the ISIS caliphate, which was more news to us.
"If Joe Biden were president, Osama bin Laden would still be alive, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would still be alive, Soleimani would still be alive, China would be eating our lunch and Iran would be on the path to a nuke," RNC Rapid Response Director Steve Guest observed.