At the foreign policy debate, President Obama began his answer to the first question, on Libya, by touting his administration’s accomplishments in national security, saying that he had “decimated” the leadership of al-Qaeda, before turning to the subject at hand.
“Now, with respect to Libya, as I indicated in the last debate, when we received that phone call, I immediately made sure that, number one, we did everything we could to secure those Americans who were still in harm’s way. Number two, that we would investigate exactly what happened. And number three, most importantly, that we would go after those who killed Americans, and we would bring them to justice. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.
“It’s important to step back and think what happened in Libya. Keep in mind that I, and Americans, took leadership in organizing an international coalition that made sure that we were able to, without putting troops on the ground at the cost of less than what we spent in two weeks in Iraq, liberate a country that had been under the yoke of dictatorship for 40 years, got rid of a despot who had killed Americans. And as a consequence, despite this tragedy, you had tens of thousands of Libyans after the events in Benghazi, marching and saying, ‘America is our friend, we stand with them.’ Now, that represents the opportunity we have to take advantage of.
“And Gov. Romney, I’m glad you agree we’ve been successful in going after al-Qaeda. But I have to tell you that your strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map. And is not designed to keep americans safe or to build on the opportunities that exist in the Middle East.”
