• The ad falsely claims that Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said that the U.S. will "have to stay there for 10 more" years. Petraeus didn't exactly say that. He said insurgencies tend to last that long and hinted that some U.S. forces may have to stay there for a long time.
  
• The ad says flatly that the draft will have to be reinstated should the U.S. remain in Iraq for a decade. But it supports its conclusion with a selective quote from Bush's war czar, who said no such thing. Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute actually called reimposing the draft "a major policy shift" that isn't currently needed. And the Pentagon said afterward that "no one in the Pentagon is considering a return to a military draft."
  

AAEI Ad:
"Upton and Draft"

Announcer:Fred Upton has supported Bush’s endless war in Iraq for four years. Now Bush’s general says we have to stay there for 10 more.
Petraeus: The average counter-insurgency is somewhere around a 9- or 10-year endeavor.
Announcer: Where are we going to get the troops to stay that long? The draft.
Lute: I think it makes sense to certainly consider it. This has always been an option on the table.
Announcer: Tell Fred Upton to end this war. Paid for by the campaign to defend America.

It's true that Petraeus also warned that pacifying Iraq is a going to be a "a long-term endeavor" and even compared it to the conflict in Northern Ireland. But he avoided saying directly how long U.S. troops would have to be there.

The ad would have been correct to paraphrase him as saying "some U.S. forces may have to stay there for 10 more" years.  Here, in full, is the pertinent portion of the BBC interview:

BBC: How long, realistically, do American troops have to stay here to stabilize this country?

Petraeus: Well, I don't know if that's the right question or if it's at what level? I think your own country, anybody who, in the UK would recognize that these are long-term endeavors. Northern Ireland I think taught you that very, very well. My counterparts in your forces really understand this kind of operation. And arguably, it took 10 years to really scope that, 10 years to do it right, and 10 years to negotiate. Again, I may have the timeline wrong, but it took a long time, decades. I don't know whether this will be decades, but the average counter-insurgency is somewhere around a 9- or a 10-year endeavor.

The question, though, is not that. I think the question is, at what level? And so, really the question is how can we gradually reduce our forces so we reduce the strain on the Army, on the nation and so forth.

Petraeus is scheduled to give an official report and possible testimony to Congress next month.

Doctoring a Headline

The ad also shows a doctored headline. It cites The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, as saying in an Aug. 10 headline, "Petraeus hints at decade-long Iraq presence." But the actual headline says, "Rep. Schakowsky: Petraeus hints at decade-long Iraq presence."

The ad overstates the likelihood of bringing back the military draft, using an unjustified logical leap and a cherry-picked quote from the administration's war czar.

After raising the idea that U.S. troops will be in Iraq for a decade, the announcer says, "Where are we going to get the troops to stay that long? The draft." In fact, the Pentagon says nobody there is considering asking Congress to reinstate conscription.

The ad uses a clip from an Aug. 10 National Public Radio interview with the White House's Pentagon liaison, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, in which he says of the draft: “I think it makes sense to certainly consider it … this has always been an option on the table.” Not mentioned is that Lute also made clear that bringing back the draft would be "a major policy shift" and that he doesn't see a need for it.

Here is the pertinent part of the full interview with NPR's Michele Norris:

NPR: [C]an you foresee, in the future, a return to the draft?

Lute: You know, that's a national policy decision point that we have not yet reached, Michele, because the –

NPR: But does it make sense militarily?

Lute: I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table, but ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another. Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well. It would be a major policy shift – not actually a military, but a political policy shift to move to some other course.

Three days after that interview the Pentagon released a statement saying "no one in the Pentagon is considering a return to a military draft," and pointing out that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is on record as being opposed to any return to conscription.

The ad also makes an unjustified logical connection between what Petraeus said in the BBC interview and a return to the draft. As noted earlier, Petraeus was actually speaking about a gradual reduction of U.S. troop levels in Iraq, specifically "to reduce the strain on the Army." If current levels have been reached without a draft, it simply does not follow logically that keeping fewer troops there over time would require one.

Finally, the four lawmakers targeted by the ads are said to have "supported Bush's war in Iraq for four years." That's true enough, but two congressman have since stopped backing the president's Iraq policy. Reps. Phil English and Fred Upton are Republican defectors who voted against the surge in a symbolic February vote.

Upton spoke against the surge on the floor. English released a statement explaining his vote and has even co-sponsored a bill to redeploy the troops.

The AAEI coalition announced that once school begins in the fall, it would follow up on the ad campaign with a digital "flyering" campaign on the popular social networking site facebook.com. Flyering is a means of messaging between members of the site. We advise students to do their homework before accepting this ad at face value.

– by Justin Bank

• Giuliani released a radio ad in which he says of persons applying for citizenship, "we should make certain that they can read English, write English and speak English." Actually, those already are requirements for citizenship.
• Giuliani's ad also said illegal immigrants convicted of crimes in the U.S. should be deported. He should have said the government needs to expel more of the convicts than it currently does.
• Earlier, Romney said New York City was at "the top of the list" of "sanctuary cities" for aliens. That's slightly off. It's true that Giuliani wouldn't allow New York City officials to turn in the names of otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens to federal immigration officials. But the city never called itself a "sanctuary city," and we find no list of such cities that puts New York at the top.
  

Giuliani, radio ad: And then, if anybody becomes a citizen, we should make certain that they can read English, write English and speak English, because this is an English speaking country.

The federal government agrees. Speaking, reading and writing basic English is already a requirement for those applying for naturalization. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, "Applicants for naturalization must be able to read, write, speak, and understand words in ordinary usage in the English language." The exceptions to this requirement include those age 50 and above who entered the country legally and have been permanent residents for 15 to 20 years, and those with medical conditions that impair their language abilities.

When we asked the Giuliani campaign what exactly he was calling for, a Giuliani policy adviser said that the candidate wanted "more strenuous" requirements to prove that applicants truly understood the language. The USCIS is in the process of updating the civics portion of the naturalization test, and Giuliani would like to make changes to the English portion as well. "The current requirement on reading is that you may have to read out loud some portion of the N-400 (the naturalization application), some simple sentences or some civics questions," the Giuliani adviser told FactCheck.org in an e-mail. "Reading a portion of their own application – which they are presumably very familiar with – is a bit of a gimme."

Actually, this isn't quite correct. Prospective citizens do discuss their applications with a federal officer during an oral interview. But that's not part of the specific English test, says Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for the USCIS. For the language test, applicants are asked to read out loud a sentence that is placed in front of them. Another sentence is dictated to them by the interviewer – a "very short, simple sentence," Rhatigan says – and they are asked to write what they hear. The civics portion of the test consists of 10 questions, also given orally in English. According to a USCIS evaluation, she says, there is an 87 percent pass rate on the English portion of the test.

How much of a problem is there with citizens who don't speak English very well? According to the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey, 61.3 percent of foreign-born naturalized citizens said they spoke English “very well” or they only spoke English. About 39 percent said they spoke English “less than very well.”

We think Giuliani's ad falsely suggests there is no English-speaking requirement for naturalized citizens. What he should have said is that he wants to make certain those applying for U.S. citizenship can read, write and speak English better than the law now requires.

Deporting Criminals

Giuliani says in his radio ad, "It frustrates me that if someone comes here illegally, in addition to everything else that’s involved in that, if they commit a crime, we don’t throw them out of the country."

There's a valid point to be made here, but Giuliani exaggerates. The fact is the U.S. does deport illegal aliens convicted of crimes, and the number of deportations for those with criminal charges or convictions was about 28,000 more in 2005 than it was in 1998, according to the most recent numbers available on the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site. (Illegal immigration in general increased during that time period as well.) Giuliani would be correct to say that the U.S. does not deport all aliens who are convicted of a crime and serve their sentences. To do so would cost an estimated $1 billion more than is being spent now, according to the DHS.

We take no issue with that proposal. But Giuliani's ad gives the misleading impression that the U.S. is not deporting criminal illegals at all.

The Sanctuary Charge

Giuliani's radio ad comes amid an ongoing spat between his and Romney's campaigns over just which candidate is and has been tougher on immigration. The bluster began when Romney again made his "sanctuary" charge:

Romney, Aug. 2007, Bettendorf, Iowa: If you look at lists compiled on Web sites of sanctuary cities, New York is at the top of the list when Mayor Giuliani was mayor. He instructed city workers not to provide information to the federal government that would allow them to enforce the law. New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country.

We make no judgments as to whether being a sanctuary city or not is good policy. We do provide some context. While New York City has never officially declared itself a "sanctuary city," as other cities have, it is included in lists of jurisdictions that have provided some degree of protection for illegal immigrants. In New York, that protection came in the form of executive order 124 issued in 1989 by Mayor Edward Koch. The order, later renewed by Mayor David Dinkins and Mayor Giuliani, said that city employees were not to give federal immigration authorities the names of aliens unless the disclosure was required by law or the alien was suspected of criminal activity, "including an attempt to obtain public assistance benefits through the use of fraudulent documents."

Indeed, Giuliani has not backed away from his support of the executive order. He said in 1996 that the order was intended to protect illegal immigrants "from being reported to the INS while they are using city services that are critical for their health and safety, and for the health and safety of the entire City." For instance, it would encourage an illegal alien to report a murder he or she witnessed or to seek treatment for an infectious disease. Giuliani even filed an unsuccessful lawsuit in federal court in 1996 to challenge federal welfare and immigration policies that allowed – but did not require – city employees to turn in the names of illegals. 

However, as many news organizations have pointed out, three cities in Massachusetts were "sanctuary cities" when Romney was governor: Cambridge, Orleans and Somerville, according to statements by Somerville's mayor and a Congressional Research Service report. We find no evidence that Romney took a hard stance against those cities' policies as governor. His campaign says he "vetoed in-state tuition at public colleges and universities for illegal immigrants, opposed driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and signed an agreement with the federal government to allow state troopers to enforce federal immigration laws." That agreement to use troopers to catch aliens, however, was signed in the waning days of Romney's time in office, six months after he first promoted the idea, and was promptly rescinded by his successor. 

As for Romney's claim that New York is "at the top of the list" of sanctuary cities on Web sites, we find no evidence to support the statement. We could find no list with New York at the top. We asked Romney Communications Director Matt Rhoades for an example of such a list, but he did not provide one.