Washington: U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta defended the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq next month despite sharp disapproval from some lawmakers, saying Washington had to accept that Iraq was a sovereign state.
During a politically charged hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Panetta told Republican “hawks” that the United States tried to negotiate a deal to keep a small contingent of troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year but the talks stumbled over the question of legal immunity for American soldiers.
In a testy exchange with Senator John McCain, who accuses President Barack Obama of abandoning Iraq, Panetta said it was not the case that the United States could simply decide what it wanted in Iraq.
“This was about negotiations with a sovereign country,” he said. “This is not about us telling them what we’re going to have to do.”
Although the Iraqi government was ready to adopt legal protections, US officials wanted the country’s parliament to ratify the safeguards but that proved too difficult, he said.
The US military’s top officer, General Martin Dempsey, told lawmakers he was concerned about the future of Iraq after the pullout but said he agreed with Obama’s decision as American forces could not operate without legal protections.
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