Tim Pawlenty, national co-chair of the Romney campaign, said on CNN Wednesday morning that Mitt Romney would not have laid out a timetable for withdrawing from Afghanistan, as President Obama detailed Tuesday.Obama announced from Afghanistan that he and Afghan President Karzai signed an agreement detailing the U.S.’s role in Afghanistan after the departure of U.S. troops in 2014.
“Well, Gov. Romney said 2014 may be an appropriate timetable, but let’s not announce it ahead of time for those who don’t have America’s interest at heart,” Pawlenty said. “That’s what President Obama has done. Gov. Romney would have taken a different approach and planned and executed those plans in private.”
Romney has attacked Obama several times for making his plans and withdrawal schedule public. But after Obama’s trip to Afghanistan on the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, Romney had only positive things to say about the president’s visit and left the attacks to his surrogate.
Pawlenty hammered the point that Romney’s main objection to Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan is about the timeline, suggesting that Obama’s deadlines are “arbitrary.”
Gov. Romney says he’s pleased that the president has made this trip. And I think for the president and commander in chief to visit troops, to give them a boost, to give them encouragement, to remember and speak to their sacrifices fully appropriate, Soledad. The only real difference here is the president making public pronouncements about time lines on a calendar versus Gov. Romney’s approach which is defining it be I the strategic objectives and others and making sure those objectives are successful and America’s goals are met rather than just putting arbitrary deadlines, in other words, conditions on the ground governing our plans not arbitrary deadlines on the calendar.
