Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says President Barack Obama has made a "serious mistake" by planning to withdraw all troops from Iraq by the end of the year.
"I think in the last year he has made some very poor, dangerous foreign policy decisions at the strategic level," Graham told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday. "I would argue that Iraq and Afghanistan is being run out of Chicago -- not Washington -- in terms of decisions."
"What about the argument that in the last six months, bin Laden is gone, al-Awlaki is gone and now Gaddafi is gone?" Wallace asked.
"I give him credit for making good tactical decisions, killing bin Laden," Graham admitted. "Not being able to close the deal in Iraq is a very serious mistake. Celebrating leaving with no troops behind is a serious mistake... He's put in question our success in Afghanistan and he ended Iraq poorly. He fumbled the ball inside of the ten. I hope I'm wrong about what happens in Iraq, but they are dancing in the streets in Tehran."
"This was a failure by the Obama administration to close the deal. The military commander said we needed 15,000 to 18,000 [troops in Iraq]. We have none. So, that's the bottom line here. At a time when we need troops in Iraq to secure the place against intervention by Iran and the bad actors in the region, we're going to go into 2012 with none. It was his job, the Obama administration's job to end this well. They failed."
John Amato:
The serious mistake was invading Iraq in the first place. Why is Goober Graham on my teevee, again after saying that the GOP opposed the Libya mission because Obama was president? Qaddafi was captured for like an hour when when Lindsey was drooling over how much money we could make off their oil and resources.
I'm no fan of these wars and deaths and drones and military tribunals, but if you're a right winger or Independent, you should be thrilled with the president's actions so far in national security, so these phony attacks really come off as being very petty. The troops had to leave because the Iraq government wanted them out. And the American people are clearly against both wars so I ask, why is Graham on my TV? There's nobody else that wants to do interviews?
