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WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Tuesday defended the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in seven weeks, but he left open the possibility of continued negotiations with Baghdad over a presence there.
In heated exchanges with Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta insisted that the administration had no choice in fulfilling the agreement reached by President Barack Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, to pull out troops by year’s end. Negotiations for a small, residual force failed over Iraq’s refusal to grant legal immunity to American forces.
“The bottom line is that this is not about us,” Panetta said. “It’s about what the Iraqis want to do and the decisions that they want to make.”
