Senator Joe Biden says it’s not the Democrat’s resolution to oppose the President that emboldens the enemy. No. As usual, it’s Bush’s fault, like everything else wrong in the universe. Biden: ‘Failed policy’ emboldens enemy.

It’s an argument a five-year old might make.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman on Sunday dismissed criticism that a resolution opposing a troop buildup in Iraq would embolden the enemy and estimated perhaps only 20 senators believe President Bush “is headed in the right direction.”

“It’s not the American people or the U.S. Congress who are emboldening the enemy,” said Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, a White House hopeful in 2008. “It’s the failed policy of this president — going to war without a strategy, going to war prematurely.”

UPDATE at 1/28/07 9:51:04 am:

It does look like the President’s “surge” policy is emboldening the jihadis.

Emboldening them to run away: Death squad chieftains flee to beat Baghdad surge.

DEATH SQUAD leaders have fled Baghdad to evade capture or killing by American and Iraqi forces before the start of the troop “surge” and security crackdown in the capital.

A former senior Iraqi minister said most of the leaders loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric, had gone into hiding in Iran.

Among those said to have fled is Abu Deraa, the Shi’ite militia leader whose appetite for sectarian savagery has been compared to that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed last year.

The former minister, who did not want to be named for security reasons, backed Sunni MPs’ claims that Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, had encouraged their flight. He alleged that weapons belonging to Sadr’s Mahdi Army had been hidden inside the Iraqi interior ministry to prevent confiscation.

Maliki said last week: “I know that senior criminals have left Baghdad, others have left the country. This is good — this shows that our message is being taken seriously.”