Republican Candidates Weak on War on Terror, Says Democratic National Committee

Mitt Romney Says Catching Bin Laden 'Not Worth It'

    WASHINGTON, April 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was
 released today by the Democratic National Committee:
     By telling the Associated Press that catching Bin Laden "is not worth
 moving heaven and earth," Mitt Romney crystallized exactly why Republican
 presidential candidates are weak on the war on terror, and why America
 needs real and strong leadership in the White House. [AP, 4/26/07] Romney's
 comments in New Hampshire on Thursday parallel the Bush Administration's
 decisions to back down from catching Bin Laden less than six months after
 September 11, 2001, relegating the war on terror and the war in Afghanistan
 to second tier status, choosing to initiate a war with Iraq under false
 pretenses, and failing to fund and support basic security measures
 recommended by the 9/11 Commission.
     Romney is not alone, however, in the field of Republican presidential
 candidates. Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani was Mayor of New York City
 for almost the entire time between the first bombing of the World Trade
 Center in 1993 and Osama Bin Laden's attacks on September 11, 2001. During
 the entire time, Giuliani refused to implement measures to improve radio
 interoperability for first responders, cited as a major problem by the
 commission that investigated the first attack, and which failed our first
 responders on 9/11. Giuliani also admitted he did not know how the
 Bush-McCain escalation was going in Iraq, nor how much further along Iran
 and North Korea were with the development of nuclear weapons. Romney,
 Giuliani, and McCain have all also stubbornly backed the President's failed
 strategy in Iraq, with McCain leading the charge for the Bush-McCain
 escalation that has yielded minimal results. [New York Times, 4/7/07; AP,
 4/24/07; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10/1/06; Washington Post, McCain
 op-ed, 4/8/07; New York Magazine, 3/26/07; Mitt Romney on "The Big Show,"
 Fox News Channel, 4/3/07]
     "It seems Mitt Romney and his Republican cohorts need to be reminded
 that Osama Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the September 11th attack on
 America," said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen
 Finney. "Calling off the hunt for Bin Laden and downgrading the real war on
 terror in favor of starting a war in Iraq under false pretenses has made
 America less safe. The American people want strong leadership, not more of
 the same bumbling and disastrous foreign policy the Bush Administration has
 made infamous."
     Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee,
 http://www.democrats.org. This communication is not authorized by any
 candidate or candidate's committee.
 
 

SOURCE Democratic National Committee