Nov 21, 2007 15:10
Romney acknowledged that the war has drawn extremists into Iraq. He then moved from answering the man's question about how he would resolve the situation in Iraq to focus criticism on Obama.
"The key for me is making sure we do not have Iraq develop into a safe haven of the nature Afghanistan was under the Taliban. If we were to do what Barack Obama had suggested, which is just pull out, now that al-Qaida is there, al-Qaida would have had a dominant role potentially among the Sunnis in particular, and that would have made Afghanistan look like child's play as a place to launch attacks against us," Romney said.
Earlier, he told the crowd that that the surge was working and that "It's fortunate we did not have Barack Obama as president. If he had been president, he'd have just pulled our troops out and al-Qaida would have been a safe haven in Iraq."
In response, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said, "If Barack Obama were president, we would never have gone into Iraq in the first place. We would've gone after Osama bin Laden, finished the job in Afghanistan and made America a lot safer than it is after seven years of a divisive, failed foreign policy that Mitt Romney apparently wants to continue." Oh Mittens. You're going to be such a joy to beat.
mitt romney,
iraq war,
afghanistan,
foreign policy