"There are 1,000 Al-Qaeda that are still in Iraq," Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing on his virtually certain confirmation as the successor to outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Iraq "continues to be a fragile situation, and I believe that we should take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that we protect whatever progress we have made there," he said.
If Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki`s government "request that we maintain a presence there, that that ought to be seriously considered by the president," he said.
The roughly 50,000 US troops now in Iraq are due to leave by December 31, but top US officials have indicated that they would consider keeping some there after that deadline if asked to do so by Iraqi authorities.
Such a move would be political fraught both in Iraq, where some view US forces as unwelcome or even occupiers, and in the United States, where the public regards the conflict and the war in Afghanistan with mounting impatience. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
