Just days after September 11, 2001, then-CNN host Tucker Carlson asked then-Senator Joe Biden if Iraq “had a role” in the terrorist attacks, and if so, “does that make Iraq the enemy?”
As America commemorates the 20th anniversary of the attacks, a lot has changed. The Delaware senator who did a town hall meeting for CNN the week after the attacks is now the president who just ended the war that began as a result. And the co-moderator of that town hall is now a highly-rated Fox News host.
In one particularly resonant exchange that John Avlon flagged this week, Carlson asked Biden about Iraq’s potential “role” in the attacks, and Biden essentially urged caution.
CARLSON: Senator Biden, Israeli intelligence a group that knows a lot about terrorism apparently believes that Iraq had a role in this. That is a view that is gaining currency in Washington. A, do you think that that is true, Iraq had a role? And B, does that make Iraq the enemy?BIDEN: Like Senator Thompson, I have access to the most recent estimates in the intelligence community and I think that anything I say to respond to something like that is probably inappropriate for me to do that on this program. Let me answer that question more generically. If a country was involved in a way that they were particularly accommodated and had some notion that such an attack was likely to
take place, and if and or if they aided and abetted in any of the intelligence given to the attackers or in any way directly help them, that puts them in one category. That’s the category, they are our enemy and they are no different than the people that conducted the attack. On the other hand, we are going to go back and as Fred and — I was on the intelligence committee for ten years, Fred was on for a long time and I think still is — what will happen is you — we will be able to show if we wanted to, that a number of countries have aided and abetted terrorist organizations and individual terrorists over time.It may be you will find a link between those who committed this act and planned it and something that happened in the past relative to helping them. I would argue that’s a slightly different category in terms of how we respond. Because we have to — look, big nations can’t bluff. We can’t miss on this. We cannot go out and cause the coalition that this administration is painstakingly put together, including the Arab world, including the Islamic world, including our erstwhile former enemies and/or possible adversaries in the future.We can’t go out there and make a mistake, or in a sense, declare war on every country that has in any way harbored terrorists in thepast and expect to keep that coalition together. So I think we have to be fairly precise in what we do.
Watch above via CNN.