WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will face a grilling next week by key lawmakers over plans to pull all US combat forces from Iraq by year's end, it was announced Thursday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee said it would hear November 15 from Panetta and the top US uniformed military officer, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey, on "security issues relating to Iraq."
The hearing came as Republican lawmakers, including senior Senator John McCain, assailed President Barack Obama's announcement that talks with Iraq on leaving a contingent of US combat troops past December 31 had failed.
The negotiations faltered on Iraqi refusal to grant immunity to US forces, forcing a withdrawal codified in a US-Iraq treaty signed under Obama's Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was due to visit Washington on December 12 and meet with Obama.
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