Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales won't lose his job unless lawmakers uncover new evidence against him, Senator Joseph Biden said.

Gonzales has ``stayed too long,'' though ``short of us finding a smoking gun, it looks to me like he's there for a little while longer,'' Biden, a Delaware Democrat who is running for his party's presidential nomination, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' scheduled to air today.

Biden serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has questioned Gonzales about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year and his role in a terrorist surveillance program. President George W. Bush has resisted calls from at least a dozen Republican and Democratic lawmakers for Gonzales to step down.

Biden, 64, has just published a political memoir, ``Promises to Keep.'' He said he is optimistic about his campaign even though he is running well behind the other Democratic candidates. He said fewer than 10 percent of the party's voters have made up their mind, though he acknowledged that it will be hard for him to ``break through'' the lead established by the frontrunners, Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

Clinton, Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards are virtually tied for the lead in Iowa less than six months before the caucuses there, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC poll. Obama received 27 percent, followed by Clinton and Edwards with 26 percent, and Biden with 2 percent.

Secretary of State

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that it is ``highly unlikely'' he would consider becoming secretary of state if Clinton or Obama were to win and offer him the post after the election.

Biden said he had been interested in the job when Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, discussed it with him in 2004 because ``I knew that Kerry would listen to me,'' he said. But with Obama or Clinton, ``based on the foreign policy assertions made so far, I'm not sure I wouldn't be sort of a Colin Powell in their administration.'' Biden said he wouldn't want to be a secretary of state ``with no influence.''

Biden, who has been to Iraq seven times since the war began, said the best strategy for ending the conflict would be to split the country into autonomous regions for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Federalism

It isn't ``possible under any circumstances to have a strong unity central government in Baghdad that all parties can trust'' and federalism is ``the only alternative,'' he said.

Biden said Turkey was initially opposed to a proposal to create an autonomous Kurdish region on its southern border. The Turkish government now has ``begun to realize'' that the U.S. may begin pulling troops out of Iraq by the end of next year, and the ``single best thing we can do to help Turkey is to keep Iraq from splintering.''

Turkish forces have battled the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, since the 1980s, and Turkey's military is pressing for government approval to send forces into northern Iraq to destroy the group's bases.

Biden said that giving the Kurds ``semi-autonomy'' in northern Iraq ``would relieve pressure considerably on Turkey.''

A report last month by columnist Robert Novak said U.S. officials are working with the Turkish government on a joint military operation to neutralize the PKK by capturing its leaders, in an attempt to prevent Turkey from invading Iraq.

Novak said that Eric Edelman, an undersecretary of defense and former ambassador to Turkey, told lawmakers of the plan, though many in Congress were skeptical.

Biden said it ``is not a mistake'' for the U.S. to help Turkey deal with Kurdish ``extremists,'' though that can only be done if there also is support for Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq.

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 3, 2007 17:06 EDT