By ROBERT BURNS
AP National Security Writer
BAGHDAD – From one war front to another Sunday, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta hopped from a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan’s southern desert to Baghdad, where he sought to encourage Iraqi leaders to decide soon whether they want a residual American military force beyond year’s end.
He refused to say whether the Obama administration wants the extension, but he expressed concern at a spike in U.S. deaths caused by what American officials believe are sophisticated explosive devices made in Iran.
Panetta prepared for talks Monday with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior members of a government politically divided more than a year after national elections. Iraq has gone that long without defense or interior ministers, whose departments are responsible for the military and police.