‘Obama right in unilateral action against Osama’

Washington : A vocal critic of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has supported the US’ decision to act unilaterally inside Pakistan to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

“That was the right course for him to take. I supported that at the time and do now,” Romney said in an interview.

This is a rare occasion when Romney has supported Obama’s foreign policy, which he so far has been accusing him of following a policy of appeasement.

Responding to questions, Romney said he would also follow the same if there were similar opportunities as the President of the United States.

“In a similar circumstance, I think other presidents –even other candidates like myself — would do exactly the same thing,” he said.

“I think in a setting like this one where Osama bin Laden was identified to be hiding in Pakistan, that it was entirely appropriate for this president to move in and to take him out. I have no compunction about that at all,” Romney said.

Romney said he gives credit to Obama for actually having made the decision.

“I don’t think it’s unusual on the part of this President to have finally taken out Osama bin Laden, after all, we’d been looking for him for some time,” he said.

“Intelligence finally gave us a good indication of where he was. He gave the order, and I think — I do think prior presidents would have done the same thing had they been in the same position,” he noted.

On May 2, the al Qaeda founder was killed in a covert US raid in Pakistan’s garrison town of Abbottabad.