As they tried to blame President Obama for the nation's lowered credit rating, the Republican presidential candidates who squared off Thursday night in Iowa made several misleading, incomplete or simply false claims.

"I was fortunate enough to be a governor that got an increase in the credit rating of my state at the same time we got a president who got a decrease in the credit rating of our nation," said Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota repeated her assertion that "we should not have increased the debt ceiling" - which would have led the nation to default.

Mrs. Bachmann misrepresented the debt ceiling deal when she complained that Congress had given a "blank check" to President Obama by raising it. The debt limit had to be raised to pay for the bills that Congress had already approved, not future spending. And the final deal required reducing the deficit by some $2.1 trillion over the next decade.