Bachmann: Gaddafi 'may be' still in power if I were president

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann admitted Sunday that Libya may still be under the rule of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi if she had been president instead of Barack Obama.

In May, the candidate called the U.S. military action in Libya "a disaster in the making."

"If President Bachmann had been in charge, wouldn't Muammar Gaddafi still be in power?" Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Bachmann Sunday.

"Well, he may be," Bachmann agreed. "I stand by that decision. I think it is wrong for the United States to go in to Libya. Barack Obama said we were going in to Libya for humanitarian purposes. It wasn't humanitarian purposes. It was regime change. And what's the result? We don't know who the next leaders will be."

"It could be a radical element. It could be the Muslim Brotherhood. It could be elements affiliated with al Qaeda. We don't know yet who that regime will be, but worse, we've seen the MANPADS go missing and the shoulder-fired rockets that are very dangerous, that could fit into a trunk of a car. And there are some reports out there that they may have even gone as far as Gaza and of course, that could be used to bring down a commercial airliner. This is a very bad decision, and it's created more instability in that region, not less."

"Are you suggesting that we would be better off with Gaddafi's dictatorship still in effect?" Wallace wondered.

"The world is certainly better off without Gaddafi," Bachmann replied. "But consider what the cost will be. We are only looking at a snapshot today. The last chapter hasn't been written on Libya... We knew who the devil was that was running [Libya]. We don't know the next one. And again, this was leading from behind on the part of the administration."

Watch this video from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Oct. 23, 2011.

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