WBEN Extra: The Final Debate

On Syria :   

Obama: "What we've done is organize the international community, saying Assad has to go. We've mobilized sanctions against that government. We have made sure that they are isolated. We have provided humanitarian assistance and we are helping the opposition organize, and we're particularly interested in making sure that we're mobilizing the moderate forces inside of Syria."

Romney: "And so the right course for us, is working through our partners and with our own resources, to identify responsible parties within Syria, organize them, bring them together in a -- in a form of -- if not government, a form of -- of -- of council that can take the lead in Syria. And then make sure they have the arms necessary to defend themselves. We do need to make sure that they don't have arms that get into the -- the wrong hands. Those arms could be used to hurt us down the road."

On The Military:

Obama: "But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

Romney: "And our military, we've got to strengthen our military long-term. We don't know what the world is going to throw at us down the road. We --we make decisions today in the military that -- that will confront challenges we can't imagine. In the 2000 debates, there was no mention of terrorism, for instance. And a year later, 9/11 happened. So, we have to make decisions based upon uncertainty, and that means a strong military. I will not cut our military budget."

Obama: "So, what -- what we need to do with respect to the Middle East is strong, steady leadership, not wrong and reckless leadership that is all over the map. And unfortunately, that's the kind of opinions that you've offered throughout this campaign, and it is not a recipe for American strength, or keeping America safe over the long haul."

Romney: "With the Arab Spring, came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, and opportunity for greater participation on the part of women in public life, and in economic life in the Middle East. But instead, we've seen in nation after nation, a number of disturbing events. "

On Iran:

Obama: "Our goal is to get Iran to recognize it needs to give up its nuclear program and abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place. Because they have the opportunity to reenter the community of nations, and we would welcome that. There -- there are people in Iran who have the same aspirations as people all around the world for a better life. And we hope that their leadership takes the right decision, but the deal we'll accept is they end their nuclear program. It's very straightforward.

Romney: "With regards to Iran and the threat of Iran, there's no question but that a nuclear Iran, a nuclear-capable Iran is unacceptable to America. It presents a threat not only to our friends but ultimately a threat to us to have Iran have nuclear material, nuclear weapons that could be used against us or used to be threatening to us."

On US Leadership:

Obama: "Governor, the problem is, is that on a whole range of issues, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's Afghanistan, whether it's Iraq, whether it's now Iran, you've been all over the map."

Romney: " I look around the world, I don't see our influence growing around the world. I see our influence receding, in part because of the failure of the president to deal with our economic challenges at home; in part because of our withdrawal from our commitment to our military in the way I think it ought to be; in part because of the --the -- the turmoil with Israel."

On Israel:

Obama: " First of all, Israel is a true friend. It is our greatest ally in the region. And if Israel is attacked, America will stand with Israel. I've made that clear throughout my presidency."

Romney: "Well, first of all, I want to underscore the same point the president made which is that if I'm President of the United States, when I'm President of the United States, we will stand with Israel.

And if Israel is attacked, we have their back, not just diplomatically, not just culturally, but militarily. That's number one."

ROMNEY: "The policies of the last four years have seen incomes in America decline every year for middle income families, now down $4,300 during your term. Twenty-three million Americans still struggling to find a good job.

When you came to office, 32 million people on food stamps. Today, 47 million people on food stamps. When you came to office, just over $10 trillion in debt, now $16 trillion in debt. It hasn't worked. You said by now we'd be at 5.4 percent unemployment. We're 9 million jobs short of that."

A May study by the Maryland-based research firm Sentier Research did find that real median American income in March was down by $4,300 since January 2009, when Mr. Obama took office.

And while the technical number of unemployed persons stands at 12.1 million, it's true there are about 23 million Americans looking for more work -- that is, they're only employed part-time but would like to work full time, or they've stopped looking for work.

In early 2009, there were 32 million people on food stamps, already an all-time record high. In July of this year, more than 46.6 million were on food stamps.

The national debt was at $10.6 trillion when President Obama took office, reports CBS News' Mark Knoller, and in September it passed the $16 trillion mark for the first time in American history.

Mr. Obama did not make the claim himself that he would lower unemployment to 5.4 percent. However, in a report issued in January 2009 -- right before Mr. Obama took office -- his economic advisers wrote that his proposed economic stimulus package could bring unemployment down to 5.4 percent by the third quarter of 2012. Without the stimulus, they predicted 6 percent unemployment.

The White House has since said that the recession turned out to be far greater than economists realized at the time. Unemployment now stands at 7.8 percent.

ROMNEY: "I said that we would provide guarantees, and that was what was able to allow these (auto) companies to go through bankruptcy, to come out of bankruptcy. Under no circumstance would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet. And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry. Of course not. That's the height of silliness. I have never said I would liquidate the industry."

OBAMA: "Gov. Romney, you keep on trying to airbrush history here. You were very clear that you would not provide government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy. You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn't true. They would have gone through a liquidation."

ROMNEY: Said that when he was Massachusetts governor, high-school students who graduated in the top quarter "got a four-year, tuition-free ride at any Massachusetts public institution of higher learning."

OBAMA: "That happened before you came into office."

ROMNEY: "That was actually mine, actually, Mr. President. You got that fact wrong."

THE FACTS: Romney was right. The John and Abigail Adams scholarship program began in 2004 when he was governor.

Romney: "When there were dissidents in the streets of Tehran, a Green Revolution, holding signs saying, is America with us, the president was silent. I think they noticed that as well."

In 2009, Iranians took to the streets to protest the reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - a dissident movement that was dubbed the "Green Revolution." Romney accused Mr. Obama of standing by, silent and idle, while the Ayatollahs and their security apparatus in Tehran efficiently and brutally routed the democratic protestors.

Romney's accusation that the president was "silent" does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, just three days after the first reports of unrest in Iran, Mr. Obama spoke out at a press conference, explaining, "When I see violence directed at peaceful protestors, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it's of concern to the American people. That is not how governments should interact with their people....I stand strongly with the universal principle that people's voices should be heard and not suppressed."

However, the president stopped short of expressing full solidarity with the Iranian protestors or explicitly supporting the reformist candidate in the disputed election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, explaining, "There are people who want to see greater openness and greater debate and want to see greater democracy. How that plays out over the next several days and several weeks is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide."

This cautious approach echoed the president's prior insistence that it is not America's role to dictate to the Iranian people their political future: "I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected."

It was this cautious approach that Romney attacked during the third debate, implying that, were he president, he would have voiced more full-throated support for the Green Revolution and the protestors demonstrating against the Iranian regime. Crucially, however, it is not at all clear that an American president siding with the democratic protestors in the Green Revolution would have strengthened the opposition to the Ahmadinejad government. In fact, the opposite might be true - the stamp of American approval on the Green Revolution may well have branded the movement as an American puppet, beholden to outside interests who are working to destabilize the Iranian regime.

The leaders of the Green Revolution labored to portray their movement as a grassroots, organic force working to change Iranian society from within. Iranian Journalist Omid Memerian, writing for the Daily Beast, argued that open support from an American president would have dashed this painstaking stagecraft to bits.

Oil imports can be measured in at least two ways - net imports (total imports minus exports) or as total imports. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) states, "[N]et-imports...gives a clearer indication of the fraction of oil consumed that could not have been supplied from domestic sources and is thus the most appropriate measure."

ROMNEY on SYRIA: "What I'm afraid of is we've watched over the past year or so, first the president saying, `Well, we'll let the U.N. deal with it.' And Assad - excuse me, Kofi Annan - came in and said we're going to try to have a cease-fire. That didn't work. Then it went to the Russians and said, `Let's see if you can do something.' We should be playing the leadership role there."

OBAMA: "We are playing the leadership role."

THE FACTS: Under Obama, the United States has taken a lead in trying to organize Syria's splintered opposition, even if the U.S. isn't interested in military intervention or providing direct arms support to the rebels. The administration has organized dozens of meetings in Turkey and the Middle East aimed at rallying Syria's political groups and rebel formations to agree on a common vision for a democratic future after Syrian President Bashar Assad is defeated. And Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton brought dozens of nations together as part of the Friends of Syria group to combine aid efforts to Syria's opposition and help it win the support of as many as Syrians as possible. The U.S. also is involved in vetting recipients of military aid from America's Arab allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Romney is partly right in pointing out Obama's failure to win U.N. support for international action in Syria. But the Friends of Syria group has helped bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid and other forms of assistance to Syrian civilians and the political opposition.
 

OBAMA: "What I would not have had done was left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. And that certainly would not help us in the Middle East."

THE FACTS: Obama was suggesting that he had never favored keeping U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the December 2011 withdrawal deadline that the Bush administration had negotiated with the Iraqi government. Actually, the Obama administration tried for many months to win Iraqi agreement to keeping several thousand American troops there beyond 2011 to continue training and advising the Iraqi armed forces. The talks broke down over a disagreement on legal immunity for U.S. troops.





 

OBAMA: "Governor Romney, I'm glad that you recognize that al Qaeda is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al Qaeda; you said Russia, in the 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years...

"You say that you're not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq. But just a few weeks ago, you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now..."

ROMNEY: "Well, of course I don't concur with what the president said about my own record and the things that I've said. They don't happen to be accurate... First of all, Russia, I indicated, is a geopolitical foe... It's a geopolitical foe, and I said in the same -- in the same paragraph I said, and Iran is the greatest national security threat we face.

Russia does continue to battle us in the U.N. time and time again. I have clear eyes on this. I'm not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia, or Mr. Putin.

And I'm certainly not going to say to him, I'll give you more flexibility after the election. After the election, he'll get more backbone. Number two, with regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement."

Romney did say in a March interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that Russia is "without question our number one geopolitical foe." He did mention Iran after a follow-up question from Blitzer. Here's the relevant section of the interview:

ROMNEY: ... In the new START treaty, as well as [Obama's] decision to withdraw missile defense sites from - from Poland and then reduce our missile defense sites in Alaska from the original plan, I mean these are very unfortunate developments.

And if he's planning on doing more and suggests to Russia that - that he has things he's willing to do with them, he's not willing to tell the American people - this is to Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. They - they fight every cause for the world's worst actors. The I - the idea that he has some more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling, indeed.

BLITZER: But you think Russia is a bigger foe right now than, let's say, Iran or China or North Korea? Is that - is that what you're suggesting, Governor?

ROMNEY: Well, I'm saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world's worst actors. Of course, the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.

As for Romney's remarks on Iraq, he did reference in a speech this month at the Virginia Military Institute the Obama administration's failed attempts to reach a deal with the Iraqi government to keep some U.S. troops there.

ROMNEY: "Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now at under 285. We're headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That's unacceptable to me. I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947.

"We've changed for the first time since FDR -- since FDR we had the -- we've always had the strategy of saying we could fight in two conflicts at once. Now we're changing to one conflict. Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people.

"And I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is a combination of the budget cuts the president has, as well as the sequestration cuts. That, in my view, is making -- is making our future less certain and less secure."

OBAMA: "Bob, I just need to comment on this. First of all, the sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen. The budget that we are talking about is not reducing our military spending. It is maintaining it. But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works.

"You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

"And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home. And that is not reflected in the kind of budget that you're putting forward because it just doesn't work."

Data from the U.S. Navy shows that in 2011, the Navy had 285 ships -- the fewest number of ships since 1916, when it had 245. In 1917, it had 342 ships. The number of ships reached a low point in 2007, at 278.

The Navy had said since 2005, as Romney stated, that it needed 313 ships to meet global defense needs. However, in April of this year, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the Navy could meet its needs with a 300-ship fleet.

Mabus in April also responded to Romney's critique of the Navy's relatively small fleet -- like Mr. Obama, he said the comparison was pointless because of today's advanced technology. "It's like comparing the telegraph to the smartphone. They're just not comparable," he said, the Navy Times reported.

As for the assertion that the U.S. Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since 1947, Politifact finds the closest answer in a report published in 2010 by the Mitchell Institute, an organization founded by the Air Force Association. The report says the Air Force had 5,988 aircraft in 2009, lower than any year going back at least to 1950. However, security experts told Politifact that, as is the case with the Navy, the Air Force's advanced technologies more than make up for its smaller fleet.

Mr. Obama did sign into law $350 billion in cuts to defense in the Budget Control Act over the summer -- and unless Congress acts to avert the "sequestration" cuts slated to go into effect in January, the Pentagon budget will be slashed by about another $600 billion. Mr. Obama said that "will not happen," but he hasn't said how he's going to stop that from happening.

Romney said the military is shifting focus so that it will only be capable of fighting one conflict at a time. But when Mr. Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in January unveiled a new defense strategy for a smaller, more flexible military force, Panetta said just the opposite. "Confronting the threats of the 21st century demands greater flexibility to... shift forces," Panetta said, adding that "how we defeat the enemy may very well vary across conflicts."