What do you think about Schumer saying our troops have failed in Iraq

Page history last edited by mike 2 yrs ago

HUGH HEWITT: Now I want to play for you another Democrat, Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate yesterday, part of his speech against crediting the surge with success in Iraq. Here’s Senator Schumer:

CS: The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves.

HUGH HEWITT: Now Governor Romney, the good news is he admits that al Qaeda is in Iraq. The bad news is he says the American troops have failed, and have nothing to do with the success in Anbar. Your reaction?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, you know, there’s a bit of a degree of bombast that comes out of the Senate, which is everybody seems to have perfect knowledge about everything going on without of course having listened yet to the commander or the reports from the field. And wouldn’t it make a little more sense, before you call something a failure, which is of course what Harry Reid did from the very outset, and now what Chuck Schumer is saying even now, to actually listen to the people responsible for what’s going on. It’s amazing to me how definitive some people can be on a topic that has a great deal of uncertainty associated with it, and where we should at least open up the degree of possibility that we might be wrong. And I think Schumer was off base with his comments. Certainly, the preponderance of evidence is that the surge and our support is having an impact in al Anbar, and we’re going to get the response on that ultimately from the guy that’s in charge of this effort.