Tancredo’s bombing threats a dud with fellow Republicans

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Sunday, August 5, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa — Fellow Republicans repudiated Rep. Tom Tancredo today over his controversial comments threatening to target Muslim holy sites as a deterrent to Islamic terrorism.

During a Republican presidential debate from Drake University in Des Moines, Tancredo, R-Colorado, stood behind his two-year-old deterrent strategy, which created another international uproar this week when he raised it during an Iowa campaign stop.

Tancredo has said he sees no other way to deter a potential nuclear attack by Islamic terrorists except to threaten to destroy the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina.

Debate moderator George Stephanopoulos of ABC News’ "This Week" program asked Tancredo to respond to the U.S. State Department’s statement last week calling Tancredo’s strategy "reprehensible" and "absolutely crazy."

"Yes, the State Department — boy, when they start complaining about things I say, ‘I feel a lot better about the things I say,’ I’ll tell you right now," Tancredo responded.

Tancredo said his first task if elected president was "to protect and defend this country."

"And that means to deter — and I want to underline ‘deter’ — any kind of aggression, especially the type we are threatened with by Al Qaeda, which is nuclear attack," Tancredo said.

On stage, Tancredo drew fire from another long-shot presidential contender, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.

"I sincerely believe that bombing religious artifacts and religious holy sites would do nothing but unify one billion Muslims against us," Thompson said. "It makes no sense."

After the debate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told reporters that Tancredo’s threat is "appalling."

"Historically, we’ve tried to avoid doing what the Nazis did, and that’s bombing every kind of possible target," Huckabee said. "We’ve had this attitude (that) we don’t do these things. There are some things that are off limits."

"What’s next?" added Huckabee, a former Baptist minister. "The bombing of my religious shrine in the Baptist church: Kentucky Fried Chicken?"

Huckabee and Tancredo are among the second-tier presidential contenders hoping to gain momentum with surprising showings in the Iowa GOP’s symbolic Ames Straw Poll next Saturday.

Asked if he thought Tancredo was xenophobic, Huckabee said: "However one wants to define it, it’s the kind of thing that makes us say, ‘We’d better keep shopping.’"

Even Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, an ally of Tancredo on the immigration issue, said of targeting Mecca and Medina, "I wouldn’t follow that."

Tancredo campaign adviser Bay Buchanan said rivals were misrepresenting the congressman’s remarks.

"Tom Tancredo makes it very, very clear this is to deter a nuclear attack on this country," Buchanan said. "He will do anything in his power, put everything on the table, to threaten those who might be involved — any way he knows — in order to cause them to hesitate to causing mass destruction on this country."

During today’s debate, Republicans took aim at Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama over a foreign policy speech last week that also caused an uproar in the Muslim nation of Pakistan.

Obama had said that, as president, he might use unilateral U.S. military action to target terrorist leaders reportedly hiding inside the boundaries of Pakistan.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Obama’s statement made him laugh, since it came on the heels of Obama’s recent statements that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of such adversarial nations as Iran, Syria and Cuba.

"In one week he went from saying he’s going to sit down, you know, for tea with our enemies, but then he’s going to bomb our allies," Romney said. "I mean, he’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week."

Hunter said Obama’s statement ignored cooperation by Pakistan’s military to move troops into parts of the country where terrorist leader Osama bin Laden might be hiding.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton fired back in a statement, "The fact that the same Republican candidates who want to keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war couldn’t agree that we should take out Osama bin Ladin if we had him in our sights, proves why Americans want to turn the page on the last seven years of Bush-Cheney foreign policy."

So far, the only Republican presidential candidate calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is Rep. Ron Paul, who had a large contingent of sign-waving fans braving a driving rain outside the debate venue.

The event was the last time the nine announced Republican contenders will meet before the Ames Straw Poll, which is expected to winnow the field going toward the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses in January.

SprengelmeyerM@SHNS.com