Rice raps Spain for 'hasty' Iraq pull-out

Spain’s decision to pull its troops out of Iraq in 2004 was made hastily and without giving its allies time to prepare for it, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has said.

Rice was interviewed by Spain’s state television TVE at the US embassy in Madrid last night, at the end of her six-hour trip to Spain.

Earlier she had met King Juan Carlos, prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Rice said that Iraq was and continued to be a very dangerous place, adding that US troops were facing danger at the time Zapatero withdrew the Spanish troops. She said the US should have been advised beforehand to prepare for such a move.

Zapatero pulled the troops out of Iraq a month after taking office in 2004. The war has been deeply unpopular in Spain, particularly after a terror attack by Islamic militants killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains.

The militants said they targeted Spain because of its participation in the peacekeeping force in Iraq.