Recently, snippets of Mitt Romney's comments during a May fundraiser have become public. Tonight I was channel surfing and came across The Rachel Maddow Show on tv, where she was covering the expanded portion of the video. Like most people, I've only heard the media focus on Mr. Romney's comments on American "victims". Ms. Maddow shared the expanded video of Mr. Romney's comments, which included his thoughts about the threat Iran posed at that time. The quote below is courtesy of a Foreign Policy article, also analyzing his comments.
If I were Iran, if I were Iran -- a crazed fanatic, I'd say let's get a little fissile material to Hezbollah, have them carry it to Chicago or some other place, and then if anything goes wrong, or America starts acting up, we'll just say, "Guess what? Unless you stand down, why, we're going to let off a dirty bomb." I mean this is where we have -- where America could be held up and blackmailed by Iran, by the mullahs, by crazy people. So we really don't have any option but to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
--Mitt Romney, May 17, 2012
What's interesting about this is Mr. Romney's understanding of a dirty bomb. The US NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) describes a dirty bomb as, "... in no way similar to a nuclear weapon or nuclear bomb." I understand politicians have a lot to juggle, however, it makes me nervous that a presidential candidate would misunderstand such a fundamental piece of national security. For anyone who is interested, the Foreign Policy article referenced above is very good and helps explain the larger concerns about the Iranian situation.
*Edited to correct word usage. That's what I get for typing quickly at night. Leia Mais…
