JULY 11, 2011
Panetta Airs Frustration Over Iraq
By ADAM ENTOUS
BAGHDAD--U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta voiced frustration Monday with the Iraqi government's delay in deciding whether to ask the U.S. to keep troops in the country beyond the current Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline, saying, "Dammit, make a decision."
Mr. Panetta also stepped up pressure on Baghdad to do more to stem attacks on U.S. forces by Iran-backed Iraqi militias, telling American troops the U.S. would "push the Iraqis to take on the responsibility," but would also "do what we have to do unilaterally" to protect American lives.
On his first overseas trip as defense secretary, Mr. Panetta has emerged as a forceful spokesman for U.S. interests, but has sometimes blurred the line between blunt and blunder. On several occasions during stops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Panetta misspoke on topics central to his new job, from troop levels to the military campaign in Libya, forcing his aides to clarify or correct the record.
During the meeting with troops in Baghdad, Mr. Panetta appeared to reprise one of the most controversial claims used by the George W. Bush administration to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The reason you guys are here is because on 9-11 the United States got attacked and 3,000... innocent human beings got killed because of al Qaeda, and we've been fighting, you know, as a result of that," Mr. Panetta, a former Central Intelligence Agency director, said in response to a question from one soldier.
Assertions by members of the Bush administration about the depth of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda in the run-up to the 2003 invasion have been widely disputed. Mr. Panetta, and his spokesman, said after his remarks to the troops that the secretary wasn't trying to promote that rationale.
"I wasn't saying, you know, the invasion, or going into the issues or justification of that," Mr. Panetta told reporters later. "It was more the fact that we really had to deal with al Qaeda here, and they developed a presence here and that tied into it."
Douglas Wilson, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, called Mr. Panetta "a plain-spoken secretary," and said Mr. Panetta's main point was that U.S. "troops are here today" because al Qaeda still has a presence in the country and the U.S. is determined to crush the group.
"I don't think he's going down that rabbit hole," Mr. Wilson said. "I don't think that he is getting into the arguments of 2002 and 2003. He's dealing with the security situation that our country faces today... and he's dealing with it in a very plain-spoken way."
Mr. Panetta candor was particularly sharp on what he appeared to consider Iraqi dithering on important defense issues. Mr. Panetta commended the Iraqis and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the hard work of fostering democratic institutions since the fall of longtime dictator Saddam Hussein.
At the same time, Mr. Panetta said the sometimes slow-moving decision-making process in Iraq can be "frustrating" for the U.S., which, in addition to the troop-extension call, also has been waiting for the appointment of a new Iraqi defense minister.
"I'd like things to move a lot faster here, frankly, in terms of the decision-making process. I'd like them to make the decision, you know: Do they want us to stay? Don't they want us to stay? Do they want to have, you know, a minister of defense or don't they want to get a minister of defense?" Mr. Panetta said. "But, dammit, make a decision."
Mr. Panetta's Pentagon job has put the former congressman back into the spotlight after 2 1/2 years in the shadows as CIA director. As the nation's spy chief, he made only infrequent public statements, mostly in congressional hearings.
When he did speak publicly at the CIA, it wasn't always smooth sailing. He once told an interviewer that he thought the photographs of Osama bin Laden's body would be released to the public, but he was quickly overruled by President Barack Obama.
Mr. Panetta's immediate predecessor, Robert Gates, who served as Pentagon chief in both the Bush and Obama administrations, was known for a diplomatic, albeit hard-nosed, style. But on some occasions, he slipped up, such as when in January 2008 he said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was deploying forces to Afghanistan that were "not properly trained" and "don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations."
The comments caused a diplomatic firestorm, and led Mr. Gates to try to soothe allies by saying that all of NATO, including the U.S., was ill-prepared for counterinsurgency operations.
Mr. Panetta's comments in Baghdad followed confusion in Afghanistan over the weekend over his statements about how many troops would remain in that country through the end of 2014. "We're going to have 70,000 there through 2014, and obviously, as we get to 2014, we'll develop a plan as to how we reduce that force at that time," Mr. Panetta said. "For at least the next two years we're going to have a pretty significant force in place to try to deal with the challenges we face."
Mr. Obama last month ordered the military to withdraw 33,000 "surge" troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer, leaving nearly 70,000 troops in place. After the summer of 2012 drawdown, Mr. Obama said, U.S. troops would continue leaving Afghanistan at "a steady pace" as Afghan security forces assume more control.
Mr. Wilson later said that Mr. Panetta misspoke, and that drawdown plans for Afghanistan through 2014 have yet to be developed. "He was not here making new policy. He was not here differing with the president. He was not here making news on numbers at all," Mr. Wilson said.
Mr. Panetta intended to make the point that the drawdown wouldn't be "precipitous," Mr. Wilson added.
Over the weekend, Mr. Panetta also said the "primary effort" of the military mission in Libya is to "bring down the regime" of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. The United Nations resolution authorizing the use of force in Libya specifies that the intention is to protect civilians from Col. Gadhafi's forces, not to topple the longtime dictator.
Aides said the secretary wasn't contradicting U.S. policy and that Mr. Obama has made clear that the U.S. wants the Libyan leader to go.
--Julian E. Barnes in Washington contributed to this article.