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Mitt Romney on Homeland SecurityFormer Republican Governor (MA) |
A: I do not believe that as a presidential candidate, it is wise for us to describe precisely what techniques we will use in interrogating people. I want to make sure these folks are kept at Guantanamo. I don't want the people that are carrying out attacks on this country to be brought into our jail system and be given legal representation in this country. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed went to Guantanamo and he met G.I.s and CIA interrogators. And that's just exactly how it ought to be.
MCCAIN: Because I don't think that's the time to call in the lawyers, when we're in a national security crisis. Those are the last people I'd call in. I'd call in my wisdom, my knowledge, my background, my experience, and my ability to lead this nation.
ROMNEY: I want to make one thing very, very clear, and that is if there were ever a question of a security threat to this country, I would act immediately to protect the interests of America and our citizens. No question about that. But every president has of course met with White House counsel and they have written opinions about the involvement of Congress. The decision to take our men and women to war is the most grave decision and I would do that on a very deliberate and careful basis, not a half-cocked basis.
Romney has tried this bit before. In fact, we've called him on it once already: that in inflation-adjusted dollars, defense spending dropped nearly 15% between Reagan's last budget and the final budget of George H.W. Bush four years later--compared with just under 13% between Bush's last budget and Clinton's, a span of eight years. Bush's defense secretary, a guy named Dick Cheney, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1992 that "overall, since I've been secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. And now we're adding to that another $50 billion."
A: Well, there is no comparison, of course. There's no question but that the honor that we have for men and women who serve in our armed forces is a place of honor we will never forget and nothing compares to it. People who are willing to put their life on the line for American freedom are in a league of their own, and we owe them our respect. And the sacrifice they make is something we'll never forget.
A: No, of course not. But use the law to follow people who are teaching doctrines of terror & hate, and make sure that if they're doing that in a mosque, in a school, in a playground, wherever it's being done, we know what's going on. There's no question but that we're under threat from people who want to attack our country in this global effort. We need to know about that, track them, follow them, and make sure that in every way we can, we know what they're doing and where they're doing it. And if it means we have to go into a mosque to wiretap or a church, then that's exactly where we're going to go. I hear from time to time people say, hey, wait a second. We have civil liberties we have to worry about. But don't forget, the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive, & that's what we're going to have to do.
A: When you're running for president, you have to think about the question and the answer, but you also have to think about the implications of what you're saying around the world. And Pakistan is a tinderbox. And of course, America keeps its options open to do what we think is in our best interest. But in a place like Pakistan, you make sure that you don't say things that could be misinterpreted and misused. And that was what his error was. Of course, if we receive actionable intelligence about bin Laden, we will take appropriate action, but we don't describe exactly what that might mean. We have an ally there, Musharraf. We don't want in any way to try & weaken him in a very difficult situation, and that was Obama's mistake.
A: The key in electing the next president is to find somebody who will make sure that that scenario doesn't ever happen, & the key to that is prevention. We've all spent a lot of time talking about what happens after the bomb goes off. The real question is, how do you prevent the bomb from going off? That means intelligence & counterterrorism.
Q: How aggressively would you interrogate those being held?
A: I'm glad they're at Guantanamo. I don't want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there. Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo. And enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used -- not torture but enhanced interrogation techniques, yes.
"In my life at that time I didn't get drafted," he continued. "I was eligible for the draft. I would have served in the military if drafted, but I wasn't drafted. My course was a different course, and perhaps because of the fact that I did not serve in the military I have a strong sense of a desire to serve in the public sector today.
"There is no question," Romney concluded. "Those that served we owe a great debt of gratitude to." Romney had a combination of deferments--a religious deferment covered his 2-1/2 years of missionary work in France, and then college deferment applied. Then most deferments were sacked in favor of a lottery, which in 1969 awarded Romney's March 12 birthday the number 300.
"If you have a strong enough military, no one will test you, and I think one of the reasons we face the challenges we do and we're being tested on so many fronts is that people see we haven't done a great job in the post-major conflict period in Iraq," he continued. "We've been tested and have been found a little wanting. I think we need to be stronger. I don't shrink at all from the need to protect this country and our sovereignty and our pre-eminence in the world."
ROMNEY: Unfortunately, Ron, you need a thorough understanding of what radical jihad is, what the movement is, what its intent is, where it flows from. And the fact is that it's trying to bring down not just us, but it's trying to bring down all moderate Islamic governments, Western governments around the world, as we just saw in Pakistan.
ROMNEY: I agree with what the mayor said--we need to add to our military by at least 100,000 troops. But we're going to have to move our strategy from simply being a response to military threat with military action, to an effort that says we're going to use our military and nonmilitary resources. The answer is to move now to a second phase, a phase of helping Muslims become so strong they can reject the extreme.
ROMNEY: Ron, you're reading their propaganda.
PAUL: What would you do?
ROMNEY: I'd read what they write to one another. Sayyid Qutb lays out the philosophy of radical jihadism and says, "We want to kill Anwar Sadat," and when there's the assassination of Anwar Sadat, it has nothing to do with us. Why did they kill Madam Bhutto? It has nothing to do with us. This has to do with a battle that is going on within the world of Islam, of radical, violent jihadists trying to bring down all moderate Islamic people and nations and replace them with a religious caliphate.
