Romney Defends President's Handing Of Iraq War

Mitt Romney defended President Bush's handling of the Iraq war and bashed Democrat Barack Obama for his earlier statements calling for a troop withdrawal. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said Bush "did a superb job knocking down Saddam" in Iraq and chastised the three leading Democratic presidential candidates for their stances on the war. He singled out Obama: "It's fortunate we did not have Barack Obama as president," he told a standing-room-only crowd of 200 at a coffee house here. "If he had been president, he'd have just pulled our troops out, and al-Qaeda would have been a safe haven in Iraq."Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said: "If Barack Obama were president, we never would have gone into Iraq in the first place. We would've gone after Osama bin Laden, finished the job in Afghanistan, and made America a lot safer than it is even after seven years of a diverse, failed foreign policy that Mitt Romney apparently wants to continue." Romney made headlines earlier this month for repeatedly targeting Democrat Hillary Clinton, who is bunched in a tight-three way nomination race with Obama and former Sen. John Edwards. "The surge is working, and we're seeing the Sunnis get rid of the bad guys there," Romney said. "And our forces are getting rid of al-Qaeda. And not only is it working, but we're seeing a resurgence of confidence in our own people to get the job done there."