Thursday, May 25, 2006

Traveling under tight security, Governor Mitt Romney yesterday wrapped up an unannounced, one-day trip to Iraq to visit troops from Massachusetts, and warned against a ``cut and run" pullout from the war-torn country.

Romney, traveling with two other governors, will conduct a round of talks with national leaders in Afghanistan today and meet US troops, as part of a Department of Defense-sponsored visit to the two countries at the center of US military activity in the region.

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In the past, Romney has criticized the lack of good intelligence leading up to the Iraq war. Yesterday, he sidestepped the question when he was asked in an interview with the Globe if he would have supported the war had he known then what he knows now of the intelligence failures, and in light of the continued heavy civil strife that is wracking the country.

``I am not engaging in Monday morning quarterbacking," Romney told the Globe. ``I supported the war, as did Congress and many Democrats. We have learned some lessons about the period immediately following major conflict. I believe we are doing the right thing."

Romney is traveling with Governors Matt Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, and Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat from Montana. The governor scoffed yesterday at suggestions by Democrats and political analysts that he was burnishing his foreign policy credentials, noting that he is the 29th governor to visit Iraq during the war and that the tours sponsored by the Defense Department are primarily focused on meeting members of guard and reserve units.