Bachmann On Iraq: ‘We’re Being Kicked Out By The Very People We Liberated’

The Republicans’ incoherence on foreign policy was on full display during yesterday’s political talk shows. Trying to attack President Obama on Libya, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), on Fox News Sunday, actually ended up admitting that Muammar Qaddafi would still be in power today if she was president.

On Face The Nation, Bachmann took a swing at Obama for announcing that the U.S. would withdrawal all troops from Iraq by the end of the year, as scheduled. But in this case, she also had some words for the Iraqis for wanting the Americans to leave:

BACHMANN: And here the United States has expended forty-four hundred lives, over eight hundred billion dollars in toil and blood and treasure. And while we’re on the way out, we’re being kicked out by the very people that we liberated. … And to think that we are so disrespected and they — they have so little fear of the United States that there would be nothing that we would gain from this.

Immunity for U.S. troops from Iraqi law proved to be one of the main points of disagreement between the U.S. and Iraq in keeping American troops there past 2011. Later, host Bob Schieffer asked Bachmann if she’d keep U.S. troops in Iraq without immunity. “Well, of course, not. No president could,” she said:

SCHIEFFER: The conditions that the Iraqis laid down, that our troops would have no immunity there, that if they wanted to, they could arrest any American soldier and just throw him into jail. Would you as President have left American troops in that country under those conditions?

BACHMANN: Well, of course, not. No president could. We could not allow our troops to be subject to that. But again we are there as the nation that liberated these people. And that’s the thanks that the United States is getting after forty-four hundred lives were expended and over eight hundred billion dollars? And so on the way out, we’re being kicked out of the country? I think this is absolutely outrageous what’s happened. And I think President Obama clearly is not respected. The United States is not respected. And the President has been a failure when it comes to foreign policy.

Watch the clip:

So by saying that the Iraqis “kicked” out the Americans, Bachmann seems to acknowledge that the they had some say in whether U.S. troops stayed past 2011. But at the same time, according to Bachmann, Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq represents how his foreign policy is a “failure,” yet, as she admitted, she also would not have allowed the American military to stay without immunity.