In April, ABC's Robin Roberts asked Romney: "Do you believe that there should be a timetable in withdrawing the troops?" He responded: "Well, there's no question that the president and Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, and the leadership of the Iraqi government."
Writers from the Associated Press and Time magazine, among others, have suggested Romney's quote does not constitute an endorsement of "secret timetables" for withdrawal. It is a debatable point. If Romney does not actually say, "I support secret timetables for withdrawal," he does seem to endorse such timetables in response to a question about withdrawal. That's important. It was a direct question: "Do you believe that there should be a timetable in withdrawing the troops?" If the answer was no, presumably Romney would have said so. He did not.
Romney further muddled things in his response to a follow-up. Roberts said: "So, private. You wouldn't do it publicly? Because the president has said flat out that he will veto anything the Congress passes about a timetable for troop withdrawals. As president, would you do the same?"
Romney responded: "Well, of course. Can you imagine a setting where during the Second World War we said to the Germans, gee, if we haven't reached the Rhine by this date, why, we'll go home, or if we haven't gotten this accomplished we'll pull up and leave? You don't publish that to your enemy, or they just simply lie in wait until that time. So, of course you have to work together to create timetables and milestones, but you don't do that with the opposition."
weeklystandard.com |
