“It’s not clear for us why such a unit, which was supposed to be trained by the Americans for years, and supposed to be one of the best units in the army, would withdraw from Ramadi in such a way.”

“This is not the army that we are willing to see or we are expecting to see.”

Al-Mutlaq, a Sunni who leads his own party and often criticizes Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, spoke with CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen on “Amanpour,” a day after scathing criticism of the Iraqi military by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“They were not outnumbered,” Carter told CNN’s Barbara Starr in an exclusive interview. “In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. And yet they failed to fight; they withdrew from the site.”