Romney hits Obama on national security before overseas trip

Bloomberg News

Mitt Romney is blaming President Barack Obama for intelligence leaks and planned defense spending cuts, as he highlights his foreign policy and national security differences with his rival before a six-day overseas trip.

The presumed Republican nominee is charging that secret national security information -- including details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden -- has been divulged for political reasons, calling it a “crisis” that should be investigated and bring punishment for the perpetrators.

“This conduct is contemptible,” Romney plans to say during a speech to veterans in Reno, Nevada, according to excerpts provided by his campaign. “Whoever provided classified information to the media, seeking political advantage for the administration, must be exposed, dismissed and punished.”

He plans to use his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention today -- following one by Obama yesterday before the same audience -- to criticize the president before embarking on a trip to England, Israel and Poland.

“This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a national security crisis,” Romney will say of the leaks. “And yesterday, Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, quote, ‘I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks.’”

International Stage

During a campaign dominated by domestic economic issues, the overseas visit provides Romney with his first chance to assert himself on the international stage. His advisers argue the trip will give the former Massachusetts governor, who has little foreign policy experience, a chance to demonstrate statesmanship and fluency on such issues and reassure U.S. voters that he can be an effective global player.

“A just and peaceful world depends on a strong and confident America,” Romney plans to say today. “I pledge to you that if I become commander in chief, the United States of America will fulfill its duty, and its destiny.”

After today’s address, Romney plans to leave politics largely at the water’s edge. Campaign aides have said he will refrain from attacking Obama while abroad, in line with the custom of not speaking ill of a sitting president from overseas.

That won’t be the case today, when he is to blame Obama for automatic defense cuts put in place by Congress last summer in an effort to force a bipartisan compromise on reducing the national debt that has yet to materialize.

‘Devastation’

“Strategy is not driving President Obama’s massive defense cuts,” Romney will say, adding that the reductions would bring about “devastation,” including weakening the Department of Veterans Affairs. “I will not allow that to happen.”

In his VFW speech yesterday, Obama stressed that his record -- ending the Iraq war, setting a timetable for an Afghanistan withdrawal of U.S. troops, authorizing the bin Laden raid and creating economic benefits for soldiers returning home -- demonstrates his support for current and former service members.

“As we look ahead to the challenges we face as a nation and the leadership that’s required, you don’t just have my words, you have my deeds,” Obama said. “You have the promises I’ve made and the promises that I’ve kept.”

While Obama never mentioned Romney by name, he addressed the Republican’s criticism of him for setting a timetable for pulling U.S. forces from Afghanistan and his accusation that the president’s policies have weakened the American position in the world.

No Security Plan

“There are those who argued against a timeline for ending this war, or against talking about it publicly,” Obama said. “But you know what? That’s not a plan for America’s security either.”

Veterans, who exit polls showed accounted for about 15 percent of the electorate in the 2008 presidential election, may be influential in such toss-up states as Virginia, Florida and North Carolina.

Republican John McCain, a decorated former prisoner of war in Vietnam, captured 54 percent of the veterans’ vote in the 2008 presidential race compared with 44 percent for Obama. Still, support for Romney isn’t a foregone conclusion. Veterans narrowly favored Democrat President Bill Clinton, who was criticized for avoiding military service during Vietnam, over World War II veteran President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

No. 1 Enemy

Romney has tried to build a foreign policy contrast with Obama by taking hawkish positions and saying he’d do exactly the opposite of the current White House occupant.

He named Russia as the “number one geopolitical foe” of the U.S., vowed to take tougher action against a nuclear Iran, and accused the president of throwing Israel “under the bus” after Obama cited 1967 borders as a starting point for Middle East peace talks.

On the uprising in Syria, Romney said yesterday the Obama administration “misread” the situation from the outset.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syria President Bashar al-Assad “was a reformer,” Romney said on CNBC. “That’s a phrase which will obviously go down in history as being poorly timed and entirely inaccurate.”

Clinton in late March said some U.S. lawmakers who had visited Syria regarded Assad as a reformer. Earlier this month, she said he had lost his legitimacy amid his government’s violent crackdown on dissent in the country. “President Assad is not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power,” she said.

--With assistance from Lisa Lerer in London. Editors: Mark McQuillan, Jeanne Cummings

To contact the reporter on this story: Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Reno, Nevada at Jdavis159bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21bloomberg.net.