Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade says he is a “little upset” with President Donald Trump after the president pulled the remaining U.S. troops out of Iraq.
Kilmeade was joined on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Wednesday by Republican strategist Karl Rove, and both men pushed back on the decision to withdraw American forces from Iraq while the war with Iran continues.
Kilmeade acknowledged that the withdrawal followed a schedule set by Joe Biden and recognized the financial cost of keeping troops in the country. But he argued the timing sends the wrong signal while the militias remain armed, singling out the groups he said were behind the bombing of a Saudi pipeline.
“I tell you, I’m a little upset we’re pulling out of Iraq again. I know it was Joe Biden’s schedule. I understand it. I know it costs money, but it’s the wrong message. When the Iran thing is settled, that’s when you make your decision, but now the militias are still armed. Those are the ones who blew up a Saudi pipeline! So what is the Baghdad government going to do to stop the Shia militias in Iraq?” Kilmeade said.
Rove warned that the militias are now better equipped than before, and he pointed the finger squarely at the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Bagram in Afghanistan.
“The Shia militias have now got a lot more sophisticated weaponry. Where are they getting it from? Afghanistan, from what we left behind when Biden pulled us out of Bagram,” Rove said.
Kilmeade and Rove are not alone in sounding the alarm. Experts on both sides of the aisle have also questioned leaving Iraq completely, including former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who this week highlighted the Iranian regime’s ties to terror groups in Iraq and elsewhere.
Panetta warned that the move risks handing Iraq over to Tehran at a critical moment.
“I worry about this kind of decision when we’re still in the middle of a war with Iran. The fact is that these militias have conducted, I think, something like 600 attacks on U.S. military. They’re supported by Iran, they’re armed by Iran, what I worry about with this decision is that we are handing Iraq over Iran,” Panetta told CNN.
The president, however, sees things very differently.
Trump, a longtime critic of the Iraq War, has celebrated the departure of U.S. troops after 23 years as a “victory” for the country. He has repeatedly questioned the decision to go into Iraq in the first place, describing the conflict as a quagmire born of poor judgment.
“It’s been a long time with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place. It was a quagmire. For many, many years it lasted. But soon that part of history will be over,” Trump said.
The president made clear he has no intention of reversing course, putting it bluntly: “We’re getting the hell out of there.”
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