Last night on Larry King, Vice President Joe Biden said Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

Now, I’m going to agree and disagree with this statement. In a sense, it will be one of the great achievements of this administration. Perhaps the only one. Things haven’t gotten WORSE under President Obama, which is definitely an achievement and one that should be credited to his administration. However, to give this administration credit without deference to the previous one is shameful and petty by the Vice President.

In 2006, former President George W. Bush announced he was sending in 20,000 additional troops to calm the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq. The so-called “surge” was designed to put troops on the ground for an offensive that would (and did) crush the insurgency and provide breathing room for the fledgling Iraqi government. During the debates on this policy, then-Senator from Delaware, Joe Biden, made the following impassioned speech on the floor of the Senate.

According to then-Senator Biden, no number of additional troops in Iraq was going to end the violence. He also noted that General Petaeus is the “only one” that believes that the surge was going to work (time hack 2:00 in the video). Not long after that, MoveOn.org began a campaign against the heroic general in which they called him “General Betray Us.” The surge worked. For those that say this war was not authorized by Congress, then-Senator Biden even admits in this video that Congress gave him the authority to take down Saddam Hussein (“declaration of war”). He also says that Iraq can “never be” a “central government that is a democracy.” He continued, “IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. Mark my words!” This didn’t happen in just the past 13 months since he’s been Vice President. It happened under the previous administration.

Then-Senator Biden also announced a new and bold campaign to stop the escalation of troops into Afghanistan. He took an active role in trying to convince the country that allowing then-President Bush to send more troops into Iraq was a “tragic mistake” and would lead to conflicts with Syria and Iran. See for yourself:

Even then-Senator Obama stated in 2007 that he was “not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” And yet, it did work and it worked indisputably.

I don’t have a problem with this administration claiming some sort of credit for the eventual pull-out of American troops from Iraq personally. I have a problem with them claiming the credit exclusively while obviously undermining the people responsible for getting it there the whole time. Politics is politics, I understand that. This is just blatant neglect and fictional history making.

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