GOP Candidates Debate Sending Troops Back to Iraq (ContributorNetwork)

According to a November Gallup poll, three out of every four Americans support President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw troops from Iraq. That said, Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a bold proclamation at the second New Hampshire debate when he asserted that he would currently send troops back to Iraq.

Consequently, the other candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination were asked whether they would send troops back to Iraq, too. Below are their responses, including Rick Perry's original quote, according to the transcript provided by The Washington Post.

* Rick Perry: "I would send troops back into Iraq, because ? I think we start talking with the Iraqi individuals there. The idea that we allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country, with all of the treasure, both in blood and money, that we have spent in Iraq, because this president wants to kowtow to his liberal, leftist base and move out those men and women. He could have renegotiated that time frame."

* Newt Gingrich: "If you're worried about the Iranians in Iraq, develop a strategy to replace the Iranian dictatorship and Iraq will be fine. If you want to stop Wahhabism, get an American energy policy so no American president ever again bows to a Saudi king, and then you can put pressure on the Saudis, because you have enough American energy."

* Mitt Romney: "The decision to send our men and women into harm's way is one which would be made with great seriousness and sobriety. [?] You can't begin to say what the specific circumstances would be, but it would have to require significant, dramatic American interests (to send troops to Iraq). You'd have to have a president that explained those interests to the American people, that also indicated how we're going in. We'd go in with exceptional force. We would indicate how success would be defined, how we would define, also, when we're completed, how we'd get our troops out, and what would be left behind."

* Ron Paul: "This business about when to go in, I don't think it's that complicated. I think we've made it much more complicated than it should be. Yes, the president is the commander-in-chief, but he's not the king. And that's why we fought a revolution, not to have a king and decide when we go to war. We would have saved ourselves a lot of grief if we only had gone to war in a proper manner, and the proper manner is the people elect congressmen and senators to make a declaration of war, and then we become the commander-in-chief, and we make these decisions."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120113/pl_ac/10829667_gop_candidates_debate_sending_troops_back_to_iraq

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