Would you have gone into Iraq?
Greta Van Susteren: Governor, you mentioned jihad, the jihadists and people who may want to destroy others. In terms of Iraq, with 20/20 hindsight — let me underline hindsight — would you, if you have been president in March of 2003, have gone into Iraq?
Governor Mitt Romney: Well, it's kind of an impossible setting to imagine, because there is so many imponderables and so much we would like to know before you'd ever consider committing our troops.
But one thing I can tell you is that when the president made his decision, based upon the intelligence that existed then — from our own intelligence sources and around the world — I supported the president's action.
And the question is, what do you do now? And how do you make sure that we get our troops out as soon as possible, without precipitating a regional conflict that would cause us to have to go back and potentially a far more dangerous setting?
And so I support the president's troop surge. I believe that al-Maliki has a plan that we can support, to try to stabilize the civilization — or the population in Iraq. I don't give it 100 percent chance of success, but I think we will know in a matter of months if it's working or not.
If it's working, we can start bringing troops home.
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