BOCA RATON, Fla. — President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney slugged it out over foreign policy Monday night, delivering sharply different views about whether the Obama administration’s handling of international affairs has advanced America’s standing in the world — or set it back. 
 
 But at times it seemed like they were sparring more over Obama’s tactics and style than on the substance of policy. 
 
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 reset POLITICO fact-check Romney hits on 'apology tour' Obama: Sequester won't happen 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama, Romney best debate quotes) 
 
 Romney and Obama traded barbs and accusations about the White House’s response to last month’s killing of U.S. diplomats in Libya, as well as issues ranging from Iran’s nuclear program to the 11-year-old war in Afghanistan. 
 
 With foreign policy issues taking a backseat in the eyes of most American voters, the candidates may have felt they had a little more latitude for spin than they do on domestic issues. But some of the facts got lost in translation. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama tears into Romney at last debate) 
 
 Here’s POLITICO’s look at how the truth fared in Monday night’s debate: 
 
 Russia 
 
 Romney: “First of all, Russia I indicated is a geopolitical foe….It’s a geopolitical foe, and I said in the same — in the same paragraph I said, and Iran is the greatest national security threat we face. Russia does continue to battle us in the U.N. time and time again. I have clear eyes on this.” 
 
 This is a fight over synonyms. 
 
 Romney has never called Russia the No. 1 “enemy” or “threat” to the United States, despite Obama’s claims on multiple occasions, including Monday’s debate. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Scenes from the Boca Raton debate) 
 
 Romney did call Russia “without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe,” in a March interview with CNN, following Obama’s hot mic moment when he was caught telling outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he’d have more freedom to negotiate on missile defense after the election. 
 
 In the same interview, Romney insisted that Russia stood out over other U.S. rivals, though he called a “nuclear” Iran “the greatest threat that the world faces” and added that North Korea with nuclear weapons “is already troubling enough.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Transcript of the third presidential debate) 
 
 Asked again by CNN in July about his views on Russia, Romney explained that he was “talking about votes at the United Nations and actions of a geopolitical nature.” He also took issue with Russia’s support for Syrian leadership, but added, “Russia is a geopolitical adversary, but it’s not an enemy with, you know, missiles being fired at one another or things of that nature.” ||||| ABCNEWS.com ABC News' team of reporters and producers fact check the final presidential debate, which was held at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and focused on foreign policy. (Click HERE for the full debate transcript and ABC News' debate analysis) 
 
 Romney's Education Record in Massachusetts ROMNEY: While I was governor, I was proud that our fourth graders came out number one of all states in English. And then also in math. And our eighth graders, number one in English, and also in math. First time one state had been number one in all four measures. How do we do that? Well, Republicans and Democrats came together on a bipartisan basis to put in place education principles that focused on having great teachers in the class room. [OBAMA: Ten years earlier]. And that was what allowed us to become the number one state in the nation. [OBAMA: But that was 10 years before you took office and then you cut education when you came into office]. The first - and we kept our schools number one in the nation, they're still number one today. And the principles that we put into place, we also gave kids not just a graduation exam that determined whether they were up to the skills needed to be able to compete, but also if they graduated in the top quarter of their class, they got a four-year tuition free ride at any Massachusetts public institution of higher learning. OBAMA: That happened before you came into office, Governor. ROMNEY: No, that was actually mine, Mr. President. You got that fact wrong. ABC News' John R. Parkinson and Jason Ryan report: Romney served as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. It is true that Massachusetts led these areas in math and English scores for the National Assessment of Educational Progress during different periods of Romney's tenure as governor. The scores remain above the national average. So how much did Romney have to do with these numbers? When Obama says these achievements were the result of reforms that happened 10 years before Romney took office, he is referencing a 1993 state law that led to the creation of the state accountability system, which became the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. It also authorized charter schools and invested more money in local school districts with the goal of improving standards for Massachusetts students, and it apparently worked. Trends show statewide results improved in the years leading into Romney's term but did not reach the top of the rankings until Romney took office as governor. Here is a table from the National Center for Education Statistics showing data from 1990 to 2011. 
 
 Is the Navy Shrinking? ROMNEY: Our Navy is old - excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now under 285. We're headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That's unacceptable to me. The Washington Post gave this claim three Pinocchios. ABC News' Luis Martinez has the facts: There are currently 285 ships in the Navy's fleet. A report by Naval History and Heritage Command provides a look at the decrease in the number of Navy ships over the past 50 years since the peak during World War II. According to this study in 1917 the U.S. Navy had 245 ships. From that date on until 2003 the Navy maintained more than 300 ships in the fleet. The number of ships in the fleet fell to its lowest point in 2006 when there were 278 ships in the fleet. Since then the number of ships has increased to the current 285. Beginning in 2011 the U.S. Navy began adding two new submarines a year instead of the one a year it had been buying. The Navy is expected to add two Virginia Class attack submarines a year through fiscal year 2016. Romney aides have said he would like to see three new Virginia attack submarines added per year. Obama replied: "But I think Gov. Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. "And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home." "And that is not reflected in the kind of budget that you're putting forward because it just doesn't work." And ABC News' Luis Martinez adds that yes, the U.S. military - both the Army and Marines still use bayonets. 
 
 Did Obama Embark on an International Apology Tour in 2009? ROMNEY: "The president began what I've called an apology tour of going to various nations in the Middle East and criticizing America. I think they looked at that and saw weakness." ABC News' Matthew Larotonda has the facts: Independent fact check organizations have poured over the rhetoric of diplomatic apologies repeatedly during this election, and the results have been mostly in opposition. Most recently the governor has brought it into reference of the administration's response to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. Further back, the idea of an Obama " apology tour" has been a recurring attack for conservatives for a long time and has its roots in diplomatic travel the president undertook in 2009 shortly after taking office. Romney himself first took up the phrase in 2010 with his book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," and has repeated the theme continuously on the campaign trail. "In his first nine months in office, President Obama has issued apologies and criticisms of America in speeches in France, England, Turkey, and Cairo; at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations in New York City," the book reads in its first chapter. President Obama never formally regrets American policy during these speeches, rather taking a tone of reciprocal blame at times for diplomatic ties that may have been strained. At other times the president is drawing a distinction between his policies and those of his predecessor, President George W. Bush. During the 2009 Cairo speech for example, Obama comes close to regretting American actions in Iran during the overthrow of the Shah. But he immediately counters by pointing the finger at subsequent regimes for continued hostility. "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," he said. "Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known." On his first visit to France, Obama again seemed to take responsibility for declining attitudes toward Americans abroad, for policies that have shown "arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." But on the flip side he immediately derided Europeans for "casual" and "insidious" anti-Americanism. "On both sides of the Atlantic these attitudes have become all too common," he said. "They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us more isolated." All of these remarks fall short of formally apologizing for American diplomacy, but some of the president's most conciliatory remarks have come regarding the detainees of Guantanamo Bay. At the 2009 National Archives speech on terrorism, Obama said the military prison's use was "based on fear than foresight," and that "it likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained." 
 
 Was Obama Silent During Iran's Green Revolution? ROMNEY: When the students took to the streets in Tehran and the people there protested, the Green Revolution occurred for the president to be silent I thought was an enormous mistake. ABC News' Dana Hughes, Sarah Parnass and Serena Marshall have the facts: Romney has repeatedly accused President Obama of sitting on the sidelines during the protests in Iran that followed a disputed presidential election on June 12, 2009. But the president was not entirely silent. Three days after the election, Obama said in a press avail: "I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football -- or discussions with the United States. Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process -- free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled. My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren't on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can't state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election." It wasn't until 8 days later when Obama held a press conference on June 23, 2009 that he strongly spoke out: "The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost. I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering with Iran's affairs. But we must also bear witness to the courage and the dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place." Secretary Clinton clarified the Obama Administration's actions in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Aug. 9, 2009. Clinton said that the Obama administration was trying to balance leaving the revolution in the hands of the protesters with intervening behind the scenes. "We knew that, if we stepped in too soon, too hard, the attention might very well shift and the leadership would try to use us to unify the country against the protesters," Clinton said. "Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot, as you know. One of our young people in the State Department got twittered, you know, 'Keep going,' despite the fact that they had planned for a technical shutdown. So, we were doing a lot to really empower the protesters without getting in the way. And we're continuing to speak out and support the opposition." The request by the member of the State Department that Clinton referenced spurred criticism for the administration. Technology and social movement researcher Evgeny Morozov wrote in his book, "The Net Delusion," that because of this incident, Iranian officials came to see the Internet as a way for the West to infiltrate Iran and may have led to the arrests of Iranian bloggers. 
 
 Romney's Recommendations on Libya OBAMA: To the governor's credit you supported us going into Libya and the coalition that we organized but when it came time to making sure that Kaddafi didn't stay in power, that he was captured, Governor, your suggestion was that this was mission creep, that this was mission muddle. Imagine if we had pulled out at that time. ABC News' Serena Marshall and Chris Good have the facts: Obama is referring to Romney's op-ed titled "Mission Middle" posted at Nationalreview.com on April 21. He wrote that he had supported President Obama's "specific, limited mission," which he said the president had defined "as humanitarian: We would enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Libyan forces from bombing civilians. I support that." But noting that President Obama had joined UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in an op-ed that said "to succeed, Qaddafi must go and go for good," Romney attacked the president, saying, "It is apparent that our military is engaged in much more than enforcing a no-fly zone. What we are watching in real time is another example of mission creep and mission muddle." Later, after Qaddafi's death Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom said: "Mitt Romney supported the initial humanitarian mission-as articulated by President Obama-to enforce a no-fly zone. As the mission went on, however, it became clear that President Obama had no idea about his intentions in Libya and that's when Mitt warned against mission muddle and mission creep. The fall from power and subsequent death of Qaddafi brings to end a brutal chapter in Libya's history-but that does not validate the president's approach to Libya. The credit goes to the people of Libya." Romney supported involvement, but he criticized the multilateral approach in a March 21, 2011 interview with Hugh Hewitt, saying "we're following the French into Libya" and suggesting Obama delegated U.S. foreign policy to the U.N. HH: What is your reaction to President Obama's announcement of air strikes on Libya? MR: Well, first, I support military action in Libya. I support our troops there and the mission that they've been given. But let me also note that thus far, the president has been unable to construct a foreign policy, any foreign policy. I think it's fair to ask, you know, what is it that explains the absence of any discernable foreign policy from the president of the United States? And I believe that it flows from his fundamental disbelief in American exceptionalism. In the president's world, all nations have common interests, the lines between good and evil are blurred, America's history merits apology. And without a compass to guide him in our increasingly turbulent world, he's tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced. And as a result, I think, he says, for instance, he's committed to our success in Afghanistan unless it means commitment beyond 2011. He stands with our ally, Israel, but condemns its settlement policy even more forcefully than he condemns Hamas' rockets. And he calls for the removal of Muammar Qaddafi, but then conditions our action on the directions we get from the Arab League and the United Nations. 
 
 Did Romney Say We Should Still Have Troops in Iraq? OBAMA: Just a few weeks ago you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now and the challenge we have. I know you have not been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you have offered an opinion you have been wrong. ABC News' Luis Martinez has the facts: It is true that Mitt Romney was critical of President Obama's decision to pull combat troops out of Iraq. And on Oct. 8th, during a foreign policy speech he delivered at the Virginia Military Institute, Romney said the pullout from Iraq was too abrupt. "In Iraq, the costly gains made by our troops are being eroded by rising violence, a resurgent Al Qaeda, the weakening of democracy in Baghdad, and the rising influence of Iran. And yet, America's ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence. The president tried - and failed - to secure a responsible and gradual drawdown that would have better secured our gains," Romney said at VMI. Read the transcript of Romney's VMI speech. Romney's speech does not specifically say he would prefer to still have American combat troops still in Iraq. But it does clearly imply the president's pullout was too fast. He was critical of the president while the pullout was occurring too. At a Nov. 11, 2011, roundtable meeting with veterans in South Carolina, Romney criticized the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq was a mistake. "You probably know that it is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake and a failing by the Obama administration. Secretary Panetta and others had indicated they were working to put in place a Status of Forces Agreement to maintain our presence there, so that we could most effectively transition to the Iraqi military and Iraqi security forces providing security for their country," Romney said. "The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate. It's more than unfortunate. I think it's tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard-won by the men and women who have served there. I hope the risk is not realized. I hope instead that the Iraqis are able to pick up the baton, and despite the fact that we will have walked away on a too-rapid basis." It is also true that the Obama administration actually wanted to keep troops in the country for a while longer. In October the talks between the U.S. and Iraq intended to extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond the pullout date of December 2011 collapsed. President Obama announced that all U.S. troops would pull out by the end of 2011. Gen. Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 15, 2011 that the U.S. was seeking to keep 3,000 American troops beyond the pullout date. He said that the proposals had originally started with keeping 16,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and then was revised downward to 10,000. Dempsey told Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that no U.S. military commander had recommended a complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The last combat troops left Iraq in December of 2011. Read more about the pullout here. How many troops would Romney have kept in Iraq if the talks with that country had been successful? According to the Mother Jones transcript of the video of his secret May 17 "47 percent" speech Romney said: "And the American people are not concentrated at all on China, on Russia, Iran, Iraq. This president's failure to put in place a status forces agreement allowing 10,000-20,000 troops to stay in Iraq? Unthinkable!" This number is consistent with what Romney said back in December 2011 on an appearance on "Fox and Friends." Romney said he would have sought a deal that would have kept between 10 and 30,000 US troops in Iraq beyond 2011. "Well, first of all if I were president, I would have carried out the status of forces agreement that was long anticipated that actually Secretary Panetta, President Obama, Secretary of Defense indicated he wanted to have as well, which would have allowed to us have somewhere between 10 and 30,000 troops in Iraq," Romney said. ||||| Voters didn't always get the straight goods when President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney made their case for foreign policy and national security leadership Monday night before their last super-sized audience of the campaign. A few of their detours into domestic issues were problematic too. 
 
 Romney flubbed Middle East geography. Obama got Romney's record as Massachusetts governor wrong. 
 
 At the same time, they injected a little more accuracy into two leading misstatements of the campaign: Romney's claim for months that Obama went around apologizing for America, and the president's assertion, going back to his State of the Union address in January, that the U.S. military's exit from Afghanistan will yield money to rebuild America. 
 
 A look at some of their statements and how they compare with the facts: 
 
 ROMNEY: "Mr. President, the reason I call it an apology tour is because you went to the Middle East and you flew to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia and to Turkey and Iraq. And by the way, you skipped Israel, our closest friend in the region, but you went to the other nations. And by the way, they noticed that you skipped Israel. And then in those nations, and on Arabic TV, you said that America had been dismissive and derisive. You said that on occasion America had dictated to other nations." 
 
 OBAMA: "Nothing Gov. Romney just said is true, starting with this notion of me apologizing. This has been probably the biggest whopper that's been told during the course of this campaign. And every fact checker and every reporter who's looked at it, governor, has said this is not true." 
 
 THE FACTS: Romney has indeed repeatedly and wrongly accused the president of traveling the world early in his presidency and apologizing for U.S. behavior. Obama didn't say "sorry" in those travels. But in this debate, Romney at last explained the context of his accusation: not that Obama apologized literally, but that he had been too deferential in his visits to Europe, Latin America and the Muslim world. 
 
 Obama said while abroad that the U.S. acted "contrary to our traditions and ideals" in its treatment of terrorist suspects, that "America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy," that the U.S. "certainly shares blame" for international economic turmoil and has sometimes "shown arrogance and been dismissive, even divisive" toward Europe. Yet he also praised America and its ideals. 
 
 ___ 
 
 OBAMA: "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." 
 
 THE FACTS: If Romney's "apology tour" was a campaign whopper, so has been Obama's repeated claim that ending expensive wars meant the U.S. now has money to spend at home. There is no such peace dividend because the wars were financed largely by borrowing. 
 
 Yet Obama, too, watched his words a little more carefully Monday night, with his milder suggestion that "some resources" are freed up. That's a more plausible point, if only because U.S. "resources" include the ability to continue to go deeper in debt, but for the purpose of fixing roads, bridges and the like, instead of for making war. 
 
 ___ 
 
 ROMNEY: "Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea." 
 
 THE FACTS: Iran has a large southern coastline with access to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. And it has no land border with Syria. 
 
 ___ 
 
 ROMNEY: Said that when he was Massachusetts governor, high-school students who graduated in the top quarter "got a four-year, tuition-free ride at any Massachusetts public institution of higher learning." 
 
 OBAMA: "That happened before you came into office." 
 
 ROMNEY: "That was actually mine, actually, Mr. President. You got that fact wrong." 
 
 THE FACTS: Romney was right. The John and Abigail Adams scholarship program began in 2004 when he was governor. 
 
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 ROMNEY: "I said that we would provide guarantees, and that was what was able to allow these (auto) companies to go through bankruptcy, to come out of bankruptcy. Under no circumstance would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet. And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry. Of course not. That's the height of silliness. I have never said I would liquidate the industry." 
 
 OBAMA: "Gov. Romney, you keep on trying to airbrush history here. You were very clear that you would not provide government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy. You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn't true. They would have gone through a liquidation." 
 
 THE FACTS: It's true that Romney didn't preach liquidation of GM and Chrysler and that he saw his approach as a way to save the auto companies. But his was an improbable course. Opposing a government bailout, Romney instead favored private loans to finance the automakers' restructuring in bankruptcy court. His proposed government loan guarantees would only have come after the companies went through bankruptcy. At the time, however, both automakers were nearly out of cash and were bad credit risks. The banking system was in crisis and private money wasn't available. So without hefty government aid, the assets of both companies probably would have been sold in liquidation auctions. 
 
 ___ 
 
 ROMNEY on SYRIA: "What I'm afraid of is we've watched over the past year or so, first the president saying, `Well, we'll let the U.N. deal with it.' And Assad _ excuse me, Kofi Annan _ came in and said we're going to try to have a cease-fire. That didn't work. Then it went to the Russians and said, `Let's see if you can do something.' We should be playing the leadership role there." 
 
 OBAMA: "We are playing the leadership role." 
 
 THE FACTS: Under Obama, the United States has taken a lead in trying to organize Syria's splintered opposition, even if the U.S. isn't interested in military intervention or providing direct arms support to the rebels. The administration has organized dozens of meetings in Turkey and the Middle East aimed at rallying Syria's political groups and rebel formations to agree on a common vision for a democratic future after Syrian President Bashar Assad is defeated. And Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton brought dozens of nations together as part of the Friends of Syria group to combine aid efforts to Syria's opposition and help it win the support of as many as Syrians as possible. The U.S. also is involved in vetting recipients of military aid from America's Arab allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. 
 
 Romney is partly right in pointing out Obama's failure to win U.N. support for international action in Syria. But the Friends of Syria group has helped bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid and other forms of assistance to Syrian civilians and the political opposition. 
 
 ___ 
 
 OBAMA: "What I would not have had done was left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. And that certainly would not help us in the Middle East." THE FACTS: Obama was suggesting that he had never favored keeping U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the December 2011 withdrawal deadline that the Bush administration had negotiated with the Iraqi government. Actually, the Obama administration tried for many months to win Iraqi agreement to keeping several thousand American troops there beyond 2011 to continue training and advising the Iraqi armed forces. The talks broke down over a disagreement on legal immunity for U.S. troops. 
 
 ___ 
 
 ROMNEY: "We have an enormous trade imbalance with China, and it's worse this year than last year and it's worse last year than the year before." 
 
 THE FACTS: That's true as far as it goes but the imbalance is far from unique to the Obama years. The U.S. has run a trade deficit with China since 1985 and the gap has widened nearly every year since. According to Chinese customs data, Beijing reported a $181.3 billion trade surplus with the United States in 2010. That grew to $202.3 billion last year. The surplus for the first nine months of this year was $161.9 billion, well ahead of the level at this point in 2011. 
 
 ___ 
 
 OBAMA: "You are familiar with jobs being shipped overseas because you invested in companies that were shipping jobs overseas. And, you know, that's your right. I mean, that's how our free market works." 
 
 THE FACTS: Bain Capital, the private equity company that Romney ran from 1984 to 2001, did invest in several companies that shifted American jobs and operations from the U.S. to China and other foreign nations. In one instance in 1998, Bain bought a 10 percent investment stake in Global-Tech, a Hong Kong firm that used mainland Chinese factories to make toasters and other appliances for U.S. manufacturers that were phasing out American operations and jobs. Romney held full Bain partnership stakes in that deal before the firm sold its holding later that year. Bain also invested in several firms that outsourced to Mexico in the early 2000s, but by then Romney had begun shifting away from Bain to a role running the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. And in almost all of these cases, it remains unclear how much oversight Bain had in the overseas shifts. The Romney campaign has said that Romney's holdings were mostly passive in nature, particularly after he left the firm. 
 
 ___ 
 
 ROMNEY: "In the 2000 debates, there was no mention of terrorism." 
 
 THE FACTS: There was passing mention of terrorism in the 2000 debates. In the Oct. 17, 2000, debate between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, Gore talked about his work in Congress to "deal with the problems of terrorism and these new weapons of mass destruction." And in the vice presidential debate, Democrat Joe Lieberman defended the Clinton administration's record of preparing the armed forces to "meet the threats of the new generation of tomorrow, of weapons of mass destruction, of ballistic missiles, terrorism, cyber warfare." Romney's larger point, that the U.S. did not anticipate anything on the scale of terrorist threat that existed, is supported by the light attention paid to the subject in the debates. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper, Robert Burns, Tom Raum and Stephen Braun in Washington, Charles Hutzler in Beijing and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.
– President Obama called Mitt Romney's claim of a presidential "apology tour" a giant "whopper"—but Romney wasn't the only one offering misleading information last night, the AP reports. A rundown of some of the debate's inaccuracies: Obama wasn't apologizing on his foreign tour early in his presidency. Instead, he acknowledged US foreign policy missteps—but also saluted American ideals. Romney's claim that Syria is Iran's "route to the sea" is just geographically wrong: Iran is on the Persian Gulf and doesn't border Syria on land. Obama's implication that ending wars will free up money at home is largely incorrect, since the wars were run on borrowed cash. Contrary to Obama's argument, a tuition payment program for top students at Massachusetts public institutions did occur under Romney. Romney said the idea that he'd liquidate the auto industry was "silliness"—but had his bankruptcy plan been put into action, the struggling companies would likely have faced liquidation. The US isn't playing a "leadership role" in Syria, according to Romney. In fact, the Obama administration has been active in helping shape the opposition and bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the country. Romney said he'd indict Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, apparently for threats against Israel. But threats don't appear to be grounds for such an indictment under the Genocide Convention, notes the Washington Post. Obama overstated Romney's comment that we shouldn't move "heaven and earth" to get Osama bin Laden. Days later, Romney said that "we'll move everything to get him," but it's not just about bin Laden—it's about fighting the "Islamic jihad movement" as a whole. Romney did call Russia "our No. 1 geopolitical foe," but in the same interview, he said Iran was the world's "greatest threat," Politico points out. And while Obama was technically correct that the US military might "have fewer bayonets," it does still use them, notes ABC News.