Thursday, 4:30 PM
Romney backs Bush plan to send more troops to Iraq
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent, and Scott Helman, Globe Staff
Mitt Romney today endorsed President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq, saying that the military must protect civilians from the violence gripping Baghdad and other parts of the country.
In his first comments on the war since formally establishing his presidential campaign, Romney suggested sending five more brigades to Baghdad and an additional two regiments to the Al-Anbar province. A brigade is typically made up of about 5,000 troops, while a regiment can vary in number.
While Romney did not reference a specific number of troops, his suggestion is in line with a plan that President Bush is expected to announce this evening in nationally televised speech. The president is expected to say that five active-duty combat brigades, or about 20,000 troops, will be deployed in Iraq beginning at the end of the month.
"I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change," Romney said. "Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction."
In the past, Romney has criticized the execution of the war, but not the president. He has joined Bush in rejecting calls for an early withdrawal. And, like Bush, he's questioned several key elements of the Iraq Study Group report, saying it "suggested somehow we would pull out in a setting that was less than victorious."
In an interview last month with the conservative magazine Human Events, Romney declined to discuss specifics about tactics or troops levels, saying he was still a governor and would wait to hear the president's plan. He did, however, suggest that the war had been mismanaged.
"We had insufficient troops in place," Romney told the magazine. "We had insufficient plans. We did not have the appropriate rules of engagement in place. Obviously, there were management lapses—events such as Abu Ghraib make that clear. For all those reasons, we did less than the entirely effective job that we would have hoped to be able to do. And as a result, we're in a difficult position right now."
