Republican Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said the president's decision Friday afternoon to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by year's end "won't be good going forward."
"President Obama's team said that they got what they wanted in Iraq, Chris," Bachmann told Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday." "They got absolutely nothing. They got their hats handed to them."
The presidential candidate, speaking from Iowa, said the administration has "nothing to show" for the more than $800 billion that's been spent on the war, nor the 4,400-plus American lives that have been lost during its 10-year span.
"We've essentially been kicked out of Iraq by the people that we expended our blood and our treasure and our toil to liberate," she said.
Iran is "'waiting in the wings," and Obama should have ordered some of the troops to stay behind to stabilize the area, she said.
"They're lookiing to be the hegemony in the region," she said of Iran. "We've always left troops behind to secure the peace. This hasn't happened. This was done at the insistence of Iraq. They did not want an American presence.
"Iran will have a clear hand and a clear field to exude their dominence and their influence in Iraq," she added.
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