Government Executive - Authors - Sarah B. Boxer

Romney, Gingrich blast Obama for missile defense comments

Sarah Huisenga and Sarah B. Boxer, National Journal — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:15:00 -0400

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich on Monday quickly added their names to the list of Republicans reacting with alarm to President Obama's comment to outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have greater flexibility "after my election" to iron out differences over a planned U.S. missile defense shield in Europe.

The two leaders, attending the two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, held their last official meeting before Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin takes office in May. The conversation was picked up by the microphones as reporters were entering the room for remarks by Obama and Medvedev at the end of their meeting.

Republicans in Congress have accused Obama of seeking a deal with Russia that would not stand up to electoral scrutiny -- a view shared by the two presidential contenders.

"That is an alarming and troubling development," said Romney, calling the president's comment "revealing" for what he called Obama's unwillingness to provide more details about missile defense.

"This is no time for our president to be pulling his punches with the American people," Romney said while campaigning in San Diego. "And not telling us what he’s intending to do with regards to our missile defense system, with regards to our military might and with regards to our commitment to Israel ... I will make it very clear that the relationship we have around the world is one where America will be strong, that America’s strength and commitment to our friends and allies will be unshakable and unwavering."

Gingrich called the exchange with Medvedev an “extraordinary moment caught on tape where the president basically said to a Russian leader, 'Please wait until after the election so I can sell out.’

"If you read what he said, it is the most blatant comment about selling out American defenses I think any American president’s ever made and I don’t see how any American could trust him ever again after that comment," Gingrich said. "I mean, he thinks it’s in private and he’s saying to the Russians, please quote 'give me some space' so I can be re-elected and then I’ll be free to do anything I want to. Well, that just told you how radically left-wing Obama’s going to be in the second term.”

The Obama campaign was quick to respond to Romney's comment, saying that he had undermined his own credibility by speaking so flippantly.

“Governor Romney has been all over the map on the key foreign policy challenges facing our nation today, offering a lot of chest thumping and empty rhetoric with no concrete plans to enhance our security or strengthen our alliances," Obama 2012 press secratary Ben LaBolt said in a statement.

"Governor Romney once said that a president is not a foreign-policy expert and that he would rely on the experts and defer to his lawyers on critical foreign policy issues. Instead of passing the buck, it is time that Governor Romney shared his foreign policy agenda with the American people.”

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Romney: U.S. troops reaching 'breaking point'

Sarah B. Boxer, National Journal — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:00:00 -0400

KIRKWOOD, Mo. -- Because of President Obama's policies, U.S. troops are “stretched to the breaking point,” Mitt Romney said on Tuesday in criticizing Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan.

Appearing in this St. Louis suburb ahead of Missouri's Saturday caucuses, Romney said Obama’s plan for withdrawal from the country is too expedient and reveals too much information to the Taliban insurgents there. He also said it is wearing down U.S. forces that must go on multiple rotations as colleagues are pulled out of active duty. By contrast, Romney said that, as president, he would increase the military by 100,000 troops.

The former Massachusetts governor confined his remarks on Afghanistan to Obama and did not bring up Sunday’s massacre involving a soldier who is accused of leaving his base in a remote part of southern Afghanistan and shooting Afghan civilians. At least 16 people died, including nine children. Romney, in a rare show of agreement, has taken Obama’s side on the implications of that incident.

Romney also repeated concerns he has made about the declining size of both the Navy and Air Force. When he made similar remarks during a debate in South Carolina earlier this year, the fact-checking website PolitiFact labeled them “Pants on Fire,” the site’s lowest rating for accuracy.

During his speech, Romney also had harsh words for Obama’s handling of Iran. Responding to the president’s assertion on Monday that jitters about the prospect of a military conflict involving Iran -- something Obama said has been fueled by GOP presidential candidates' rhetoric -- were the biggest factor behind the recent jump in gasoline prices, Romney said Obama was misguided.

"Frankly, it's disappointing to have the president of the United States take a serious foreign-policy issue which is Iran, the state sponsor of terror in the world, becoming nuclear, and trying to turn that into saying we're somehow responsible for high gasoline prices in this country,” Romney said. “It's a real stretch even for a guy who's gotten pretty good at making excuses.”

Romney said that if the president was still looking for answers on gas prices, “I have some suggestions for him,” citing the administration’s moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, its refusal to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the denial of a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Energy experts have said that doing any of those things wouldn't have any immediate impact at the pump, but Romney said, “Those things affect gasoline prices, long term."

The Obama campaign issued a swift response, as spokeswoman Lis Smith accused Romney of showing “that he will say anything in the pursuit of political gain."

“Contrary to Mitt Romney's rhetoric today, President Obama has aggressively pursued an all-of-the-above energy strategy by approving hundreds of drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico and making millions of acres available for oil and gas development,” Smith said. “Today, domestic oil and gas production is at an eight-year high and our dependence on foreign oil has hit a 16-year low. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, would continue tax subsidies for oil and gas companies making near-record profits and has opposed fuel-economy standards that will save consumers thousands of dollars at the pump. These misguided policies would do nothing to reduce gas prices or create jobs."

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Romney to mother of Army daughter: How can Obama sleep at night?

Sarah B. Boxer, National Journal — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:23:00 -0500

DAYTON, Ohio – A woman at a rally here tearfully asked Mitt Romney on Saturday why her Army daughter is still in Afghanistan nearly a year after the death of Osama bin Laden. He seized on her question to accuse President Obama of failing to clearly communicate the mission to U.S. troops serving there.

Vicki Chura, 54, of Fairfield, Ohio, said her daughter calls home constantly from Bagram Air Base, where she serves with the 82nd Airborne Division, and is confused about why she is still there. She asked Romney what he would do to speed the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"Her first deployment, she never once said ‘I want to come home,’" Chura said of her daughter, who has been in the Army for more than three years. "This deployment has been extremely hard, not only for her, but for my husband and I. Every email, every time we Skype, we hear ‘I want to come home now’. There is no mission here. We have no definition of a mission."

Romney jumped on Chura’s complaint and attacked Obama on the war. “If your daughter is not familiar with the mission that she's on, how in the world can the commander in chief sleep at night, knowing that we have soldiers in harm’s way that don't know exactly, precisely, what it is that they're doing there?" he asked.

The former Massachusetts governor said he found the president's failure to make the mission clear one of the "most disturbing and hard to explain" elements of Obama's tenure. Though American troops may have a hard time finding clarity in their mission, Romney said, he fully understood its purpose to be helping Afghani forces to achieve sovereignty and security. However, he continued, "We will not, we will not be able to hand on a silver platter their freedom. They will have to fight for that, earn it, keep the Taliban from taking it away from them. But we've given them that opportunity. We need to finish the job of passing it off to them, and bring our troops home as soon as humanly possible."

Romney has criticized Obama for announcing a withdrawal schedule and for the pace of the withdrawal. Some 10,000 U.S. troops left Aghanistan in 2011 and another 23,000 are scheduled to withdraw by this summer, leaving 68,000. The plan is for Afghan forces to be entirely in charge of security by 2014. Polls show most Americans want the war to end.

Chura said she hasn’t decided yet whether to vote for Romney or former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum in Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary. She said Romney's lack of foreign policy experience will not be a factor because she trusts he will have a strong advisory team. Nor did Romney’s answer to her question disqualify him. She said her maternal instincts led her to hope he might say he would bring her daughter home immediately, but "he showed determination and backbone" by not overpromising.

Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said that the under Obama's leadership, "we are decimating al-Qaeda" and the Afghans are preparing to take over their own security. She said Romney "has failed to outline any plan at all for what he would do in Afghanistan and has even made clear that he would leave our troops there indefinitely."

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Romney bashes announcement on Afghan troop withdrawal

Sarah B. Boxer, National Journal — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:20:00 -0500

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Continuing his offensive against President Obama's national-security stances, Mitt Romney on Wednesday accused Defense Secretary Leon Panetta of being "misguided and naive" for announcing earlier that the U.S.-led NATO coalition would end its combat role in Afghanistan next year.

The Obama administration had previously promised that the United States would keep troops in Afghanistan until 2014, but Panetta told reporters traveling with him in Brussels that the shrinking of its military footprint hopefully could occur in the mid- to latter part of 2013.

Romney, at a rally in Las Vegas, said some administration actions "are calculated on a philosophy that's hard to understand and sometimes you scratch you head and say how can he be so misguided and so naive? Today his secretary of defense unleashed such a policy."

He added, "So the Taliban hears it, the Pakistanis hear it, the Afghan leaders hear it. Why in the world do you go to the people that you're fighting with and tell them the date you're pulling out your troops? It makes absolutely no sense. His naivete is putting in jeopardy the mission of the United States of America and our commitments to freedom. He is wrong. We need new leadership in Washington."

A Panetta spokesman defended the decision, saying "the fact that we can start to look ahead in Afghanistan is a strong sign of progress in the war effort. Our commitment to Afghanistan is enduring, and we will work with the Afghans and our allies to ensure that the country never again becomes a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups."

The war has become increasingly unpopular with Americans, according to polls. A CNN/ORC International poll last fall found 63 percent saying they opposed U.S. involvement, with more than half — 58 percent — telling pollsters they likened the conflict to the Vietnam War.

Rep. Ron Paul earlier expressed skepticism in reacting to Panetta's remarks. The Texas Republican, who steadfastly opposes sending U.S. troops overseas, said, "It's a great idea; I'll believe it when I see it."

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Romney camp calls Gingrich 'granddaddy of earmarks'

Sarah B. Boxer, National Journal — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Endangered GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney on Friday launched a new attack on rival Newt Gingrich's record in Congress, with his surrogates calling Gingrich the "granddaddy of earmarks."

On a conference call with reporters, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a leader in the GOP effort to fight wasteful earmarked spending on Capitol Hill, said he was astounded by the number of earmarks Gingrich had allowed to go through on bills when he was House speaker. Borrowing a line from former candidate Rick Perry, who ended his campaign on Thursday, Flake called Gingrich the "granddaddy of earmarks," and said that earmarked spending "exploded" during Gingrich's speakership from 1995 to 1999. "Members [of Congress] considered earmarks their entitlement," he said.

Congressional earmarks, which are spending provisions put into bills by lawmakers to benefit their districts or states, have been a touchstone issue for tea party activists in the debate over shrinking the debt and reducing the reach of the federal government.

Joining Flake in the call on Romney's behalf were two other House Republicans, Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah and John Campbell of California. None of the three Romney surrogates served alongside Gingrich in the House, but they said they felt qualified to comment on the former speaker's lasting legacy.

Campbell said that Gingrich's tenure "has been a significant part of why the budget has blown up."

Said Chaffetz: "We didn't create this mess but we're here to clean it up."

Chaffetz also noted that Romney has 64 endorsements from senators and House members, while Newt only has 13. He called the support for Romney in Congress "overwhelming."

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Romney: Don’t cut Pentagon budget

Sarah B. Boxer — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

"I want to make sure we do not shrink the military budget," the GOP presidential contender told a crowd of about 70 military veterans and campaign supporters gathered in a naval museum in this suburb of Charleston.

On the eve of what he has described as a major foreign policy address, Romney attacked President Obama's proposed cuts in the defense budget. "We're still involved in armed conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. "Wish the president would remind us of that more often."

Romney suggested that there is plenty of waste in the Pentagon bureaucracy, noting that the number of people involved in naval purchasing has jumped from 1,000 during World War II to 24,000 today. But he argued that any savings wrung from cutting administrative costs should be plowed back into the military budget, both for armaments and veterans' needs.

Meanwhile, one of Romney's competitors for the GOP nomination, ex-Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, accused the frontrunner of flip-flopping on Afghanistan. Huntsman fired back at Romney adviser Richard Williamson, who described Huntsman and fellow GOP presidential contender Rick Perry as being "to the left of President Obama" because of their calls for pulling troops out of Afghanistan.

In a statement issued by his campaign, Huntsman pulled out a Romney quote from a June debate in which the ex-Massachusetts governor said, "It's time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can-as soon as our generals think it's okay."

Lindsey Boerma contributed to this report.

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