Vice President Joe Biden put out a long statement Tuesday disputing Mitt Romney’s speech at the VFW conference in Reno, item by item. In a bulleted list, Biden rebutted many of the points Romney made in his fired-up address. Some highlights:
Biden pointed out Romney’s difficult-to-pin-down Afghanistan policy:
Governor Romney supported the President’s timeline to end the war in Afghanistan, then he opposed it and now it is hard to know where he stands. His misguided criticism of the President’s new defense strategy is undermined by the fact that strategy was designed with and supported by the entire Defense Department senior leadership, uniform and civilian. It provides for a more agile, flexible force, better able to confront aggressors and project power, with strong partnerships to share the burden and smart investments in cutting edge capabilities. We proposed a budget to fully fund that strategy and keep faith with our veterans.
Biden also attacked Romney once again for bringing up Russia. Romney criticized the president’s policy toward the nation, which Romney has said remains a “foe.”
Governor Romney remains mired in a Cold War mindset. We have serious disagreements with Moscow, but our cooperation has made the American people more secure. Russia cancelled the sale of cutting edge radar to Iran and joined us in imposing the toughest sanctions in history on Tehran. Together, we negotiated a major nuclear arms reduction treaty – New START – that virtually the entire Republican foreign policy establishment supported but Governor Romney and a very small group of Cold War holdovers opposed.
