Associated Press White House correspondent Julie Pace said that recent criticism of the Obama administration from former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta puts the White House in an "incredibly tough spot."
In his forthcoming memoir, Worthy Fights, Panetta says "the White House was so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests," issuing a direct rebuke of the Obama administration's narrative on its strategy to combat ISIL in Iraq.
Responding to State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki's pushback to Panetta's charges, Pace said the criticism from a widely-respected former administration official is "really problematic" for the Obama administration.
"It is true that the Iraqis would not give U.S. troops immunity to stay in the country," Pace said. "It is also true, though, that the president of the United States was looking to get out of Iraq, and after it became clear that there was going to be no deal, he sold that as a policy victory, a fulfillment of his political promise."
Pace said while we cannot expect to see a lot of pushback on Panetta personally, his comments certainly "irk" administration officials in the current political context.
"What Panetta and others have said is that, it appears as though his desire to get out of Iraq shaped the way and the amount of effort that [Obama] put into negotiating," Pace said. "Maliki, at a certain point when it became clear that the Iraqi parliament was not going to grant U.S. troops immunity, Maliki floated an idea about signing an executive order where he could guarantee immunity, and that did not fly with the Obama administration."