Vice President Biden today called his predecessor’s assertion that the White House is “dithering” on Afghanistan “absolutely wrong.”
“I think that is absolutely wrong. I think what the administration is doing is exactly what we said it would do,” Biden told White House pool reporters. ” And that is making an informed judgment based upon circumstances that have changed … to come up with a sustainable policy that has more than one dimension.”
Earlier this week, former Vice President Dick Cheney said President Obama is “dithering” on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Cheney also claimed the Bush administration gave Obama an in-depth policy review last fall, on which Obama based his current strategy.
But today, Cheney called that review inadequate and, at this point, irrelevant.
“That’s why the president asked me to get in the plane in January and go to Afghanistan,” Biden said. “I came back with a different review.”
“A whole lot has changed in the last year,” he added. “Let’s assume they left us a review that was absolutely correct. Is that review relevant and totally applicable to today in light of the changes that have taken place in the region, in Afghanistan itself? So I think that is sort of irrelevant. Not sort of – I think it’s irrelevant.”
Cheney has also taken a shot at the administration’s re-working of the planned missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.
But, Biden said, the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, where the shield will be based, “believe that the new architecture is better.”
At one point, Biden stopped himself mid-sentence: “Who cares what – ”
“Yeah, yeah, I can see the headline now,” he said. “I’m getting better, guys. I’m getting a little better, you know what I mean?”
