John McCain

The outcome has been exactly as predicted.

They were ready to make that agreement.

The truth is that this administration was committed to the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and they made it happen.

So in these times of fiscal austerity, we withdraw all our military troops and hire a whole bunch of contractors, who either rightly or wrongly do not have a very good reputation as opposed to the uniformed military, in order to secure the…

The fact is that we could have been given sovereign immunity, as we have in other countries, to keep our troops there.

This is about our needs as well, Mr. Secretary.

The fact is that the President was presented with options, either a declaration of sovereign immunity made by the government.

So to say that the Iraqi Government did not want us when they did not know the numbers and missions that we wanted to have there, of course, makes it more understandable why we did not reach an agreement with them as it, as you mentioned…

The fact is that every military leader recommended that we have residual forces at minimum of 10,000 and usually around 20,000.

The United States will maintain a long-term relationship with Iraq. We are committed to that.

We are not going anywhere, and we will continue to reassure our partners, deter aggressors, and counter those seeking to create instability.

This is not about us. It is about what the Iraqis want to do and the decisions that they want to make.

Iraq's progress is now at greater risk than at any time since the dark days before the surge.

We have a solemn responsibility to stay committed to Iraq's success.

The departure of U.S. military forces from Iraq in the coming weeks, consistent with our legal obligations, can contribute to advancing the normalization of relations between the United States and Iraq based on mutual respect and shared…

History will show, Secretary Panetta, that they were ready to negotiate in May and we would not give them a hard number.

In the view of every military expert that I know, we are now at greater risk than we were if we had had a residual force there.

The fact is when Senator Lieberman, Senator Graham, and I were there, the Iraqis were ready to deal.

It is in our strategic interest to see that this change takes place quickly.

I guess finally you are in complete agreement with the Chinese foreign minister's spokesman Hung Li who said, quote, the Chinese government has always paid a great deal of attention to and has promoted cooperation with relevant overseas…

Well, Senator Levin and I are committed to trying to put legislation into the defense authorization bill.

It seems to me that one of the understated or not sufficient emphasis has been placed on these intermediaries.

Well, we will try to help you with legislation to make sure that responsibility does not apply to the American taxpayer.

Extremely serious, sir.

I eagerly await the opportunity to put it on the defense authorization bill.