Andrea Mitchell to Leon Panetta on Yemen: ‘What Kind of Success Story Is This?’

MITCHELL: "And turning to Yemen, here the president described Yemen as a success story recently in our counter-terrorism effort. Now we’ve had to withdraw our special forces who were helping us target air strikes or drone strikes I should say against al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula and others. There’s a vacuum. ISIS is moving into that vacuum there. And now the Saudis are leading an Arab coalition with our intelligence support against Iran backed Shiite rebels. What kind of success story is this?"

PANETTA: "Well, you know, the reality is that the United States is I think taking the right steps now. We’ve got the right pieces in place to try to go after ISIS. I think it is very important for the United States now to take a more leading role with regards to providing support for the Iraqis and going after Tikrit not only to try to push ISIS back, but also to try to reduce the influence of Iran in that region of the world. That’s the same issue with regards to the Houthies in Yemen, which is another failed state and obviously a setback for our counter terrorism operations. But the fact that the Saudis are now going in and conducting bombing operations is again, I think, a worthy effort to try to not only check the Houthies, but to reduce the influence of Iran in Yemen as well. This — this is the concern, that Iran is continuing to try to exert its influence from Sana’a to Damascus, to Beirut to Damascus. I think that is an effort that has to be checked in order for us to be able to try to provide stability or better stability in that region of the world."