Vice President Joe Biden said after a three-day trip to Baghdad that the American people will see President Barack Obama’s Iraq policy as a success when the “combat mission” ends on schedule Aug. 31. Biden said the administration “will be able to point to it and say, ‘We told you what we’re going to do, and we did it.’”

“I think America wins,” Biden told POLITICO in an end-of-trip interview at the ambassador’s residence in the sprawling U.S. Embassy complex. “I sound corny, but I think America gets credit here in the region. And I think everybody gets credit, from George Bush to [President Obama].

“I think Americans will recognize that there aren’t body counts … that they got 95,000 people home. That will be noticeable that they’re home.”

The chief purpose of Biden’s visit was to prod Iraqi politicians to form a government and end a four-month stalemate that followed parliamentary elections. The vice president said security in the country “doesn’t really relate to whether there’s a government formed or not.”

“The government that is the interim government now — a little like our interregnum period between November and January — is actually functioning in terms of security,” he said. “I am hopeful — I am confident — that in the relatively near term, they’re going to be able to work out an agreement on … the new government.”

Biden said he hopes a resolution will come “by the end of the summer and maybe even considerably sooner.”

But he added with a smile, “That’s like trying to decide when the Senate’s going to pass health care: They did it, but it” took a while.

Biden said improved conditions in Iraq will bolster Democrats with voters in November.

“They are going to take a look and see that the president kept his promise getting troops home, which will give them more confidence in the foreign policy he set,” Biden said.

(Source: Politico)