Spain orders troops home from Iraq

The new Spanish Socialist prime minister today abruptly ordered his troops home from Iraq.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero argued there was no sign the United States will meet his terms for the troops to remain – United Nations control of the postwar occupation.

Zapatero had campaigned on such a pledge ahead of Spain’s March 14 general election. But his announcement – a setback for the United States – was a bombshell, coming just hours after his government was sworn in, and as his foreign minister planned to travel to Washington to discuss the dispute.

In a five-minute address at the Moncloa Palace, Zapatero said he had ordered Defence Minister Jose Bono to “do what is necessary for the Spanish troops stationed in Iraq return home in the shortest time possible”.

Zapatero noted his campaign pledge to bring the 1,300 troops in Iraq home by June 30, when their mandate ends, unless the United Nations took political and military control of the situation there.

“With the information we have, and which we have gathered over the past few weeks, it is not foreseeable that the United Nations will adopt a resolution” that satisfies Spain’s terms, Zapatero said.

Public remarks by key officials in the dispute and contacts that Bono held over the past month show no signs that the political and military situation will change enough to satisfy Spain by the June 30 deadline, Zapatero said.

Bono is reported to have met secretly in Washington with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on April 5.

“These circumstances have led me to take the decision to order the return of our troops with the maximum safety and thus in the shortest time possible,” Zapatero said.

“More than anything, this decision reflects my desire to keep the promise I made to the Spanish people more than a year ago,” he said.

“Driven by the deepest democratic convictions, the government does not want to, cannot and will not act against or behind the backs of the will of the Spanish people,” he said.

He said Bono would give details in coming days of the process of bringing the soldiers home, and that he himself had convened an urgent meeting of Parliament to discuss his decision.

Zapatero said Spain’s government would continue to support Iraq’s stability, democratisation, territorial integrity and reconstruction.

Spain will also support any UN or European Union effort to help Iraqis’ recover sovereignty and hold free, democratic elections, Zapatero said.

The announcement was a setback for the US, which was eager to maintain an international veneer to an increasingly besieged coalition force dominated by the 130,000 American troops in Iraq.

The Spanish troops were stationed in south-central Iraq with responsibility for Diwaniya and the flashpoint Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Eleven of the Spanish troops have died since August, including seven intelligence agents in a highway ambush in November.

Zapatero’s party won the March 14 general election amid allegations that outgoing prime minister Jose Maria Aznar had provoked the Madrid terror attacks, which killed 191 people three days earlier, by backing the war in Iraq.

Aznar’s party had been expected to win the election easily.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos confirmed reports that he will travel to Washington on Tuesday to discuss Spain’s plans with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.