Romney: Afghanistan announcement shows Obama's 'naivete'

Republican front-runner Mitt Romney slammed President Obama on Wednesday night over Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's announcement that the United States would end its combat mission in Afghanistan next year.

Speaking in Las Vegas, Romney said that announcing a timetable to end the combat mission showed the president's “naivete.”

"The secretary of Defense said that on a day certain, the middle of 2013, we’re going to pull out our combat troops from Afghanistan,” Romney said, according to reports from Las Vegas.

"He announced that. So the Taliban hears it, the Pakistanis hear it, the Afghan leaders hear it. Why in the world do you go to the people that you’re fighting with and tell them the date you’re pulling out your troops?” Romney said. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

Romney concluded that Obama's “naivete is putting in jeopardy the mission of the United States of America and our commitments to freedom.”

Panetta announced while traveling to Brussels for a NATO meeting Thursday that the United States would end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013 as NATO forces transition to a full hands-off of security control at the end of 2014.

Republican criticism was similar to their response to the president's announcement last year that all troops would be leaving Iraq at the end of 2011. GOP leaders said the move jeopardized gains there.

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