Mitt Romney
Town Hall
Humboldt, IA 12/14/07
TRANSCRIPT:
MITT ROMNEY: It's been interesting over these past several months to watch the Democrats increasingly ratchet up their rhetoric attacking the President. And uhh, of course, as I've pointed out, the war in Iraq has not been perfectly managed. We did a great job knocking down Saddam Hussein and his military. But then after that we were under-prepared and under-planned, under-staffed; The President has pointed out those weaknesses. Tony Blair has.
There is no question we were not perfectly managed. Although today we are making great progress with the surge, and its working. And we're helping the Sunnis reject Al Qaeda amongst them. And that being said, by the way, I must admit I was shocked to pick up the paper and read . . . actually I didn't pick up the paper, I got on the internet. Sorry guys in the newspaper business, I don't get the paper like I used to, I got on the computer and I'm reading the news on the internet. But one of my fellow Republicans said that this administration, he accused this administration of an 'arrogant Bunker mentality.' And I had to look again, did this come from Barack Obama? Or from Hillary Clinton? Did it come from John Edwards? No, it was one of our own, it was Governor Huckabee. He said [the]'Bush administration is guilty of an arrogant bunker mentality that's been counterproductive here and abroad. I simply can't believe that. I can't believe he'd say that. I'm afraid he's running for the wrong party.
The truth of the matter is, this president has kept us safe these last six years. And that has not been easy to do. He went to Afghanistan and knocked down the Taliban there, and took out Al Qaeda's safe haven from which they could launch attacks against us. Instead of just listening to what happened around the world, in places like Iraq and taking one shot after another. You know, we got hit at the USS Cole, Cobar Towers was hit, our embassies in Africa were hit. One time after another we were hit with no response, other than negotiating. This president finally said we are doing something about it. And responded aggressively, as he should have.
And here at home he made sure we passed the PATRIOT Act, so we could find out what the bad guys were planning on doing to us. And he also made sure that when Al Qaeda was calling, someone was listening. And when we captured a terrorist, we interrogated them. And you know the story about Kahild Shiek Mohammed, he's the so-called mastermind of the 9/11 tragedy. When he was captured, he said 'I'll see you in New York with my lawyer.' Can you imagine? I'm sure he was thinking an ACLU lawyer would be provided at government expense. That's not what happened. Instead, he saw GIs and CIA interrogators in Guantanamo, just like it ought to be.
And so, I'm, yeah go ahead, that's fine [applause] thank you. And so I'm of the view to say thank you to the president for keeping us safe these last six years. And I'm the last person to say that this administration is subject to an 'arrogant bunker mentality' counterproductive here and abroad.' [applause]
LABEL: MR IA 12-15 (GR#17) ASE - Clip A
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