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And we are now in a position where we have met many of the objectives that got us there in the first place. Part of what had happened is we'd forgotten why we'd gone. We went because there were people who were responsible for 3,000 American deaths. And so we decimated al-Qaida's core leadership in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We then started to build up Afghan forces. And we're now in a position where we can transition out, because there's no reason why Americans should die when Afghans are perfectly capable of defending their own country.
Now, that transition's—has to take place in a responsible fashion. We've been there a long time, and we've got to make sure that we and our coalition partners are pulling out responsibly and giving Afghans the capabilities that they need.
But what I think the American people recognize is after a decade of war, it's time to do some nation-building here at home. And what we can now do is free up some resources to, for example, put Americans back to work, especially our veterans, rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our schools, making sure that, you know, our veterans are getting the care that they need when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, making sure that the certifications that they need for good jobs of the future are in place.
You know, I was having lunch with some—a veteran in Minnesota who had been a medic dealing with the most extreme circumstances. When he came home and he wanted to become a nurse, he had to start from scratch. And what we've said is, let's change those certifications.
The first lady has done great work with an organization called Joining Forces putting our veterans back to work. And as a consequence, veterans' unemployment is actually now lower than general population, it was higher when I came into office. So those are the kinds of things that we can now do because we're making that transition in Afghanistan.
MR. SCHIEFFER: All right. Let me go to Governor Romney because you talked about Pakistan and what needs to be done there. General Allen, our commander in Afghanistan, says that Americans continue to die at the hands of groups who are supported by Pakistan. We know that Pakistan has arrested the doctor who helped us catch Obama's—bin Laden. It still provides safe haven for terrorists, yet we continue to give Pakistan billions of dollars. Is it time for us to divorce Pakistan?
MR. ROMNEY: No, it's not time to divorce a nation on earth that has a hundred nuclear weapons and is on the way to double that at some point, a nation that has serious threats from terrorist groups within its nation—as I indicated before, the Taliban, Haqqani network. It's a nation that's not like—like others and that does not have a civilian leadership that is calling the shots there.
You've got the ISI, their intelligence organization is probably the most powerful of the—of the three branches there. Then you have the military and then you have the—the civilian government. This is a nation which if it falls apart—if it becomes a failed state, there are nuclear weapons there and you've got—you've got terrorists there who could grab their—their hands onto those nuclear weapons.
