Giles Tremlett
Spanish Leader Accuses Bush and Blair
Wed Mar 17 02:50:23 2004
64.140.158.123

Spanish Leader Accuses Bush and Blair
By Giles Tremlett
The Guardian UK

Tuesday 16 March 2004

Threat to pull troops out of Iraq as row over election result
escalates
Spain's new prime minister, the Socialist José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero, yesterday followed his dramatic election triumph with a
pledge to bring troops home from Iraq and accusations that Tony Blair
and George Bush lied about the war.

"Mr Blair and Mr Bush must do some reflection _ you can't
organise a war with lies," he said in his first radio interview after
ousting the ruling conservative People's party in a Sunday election
dominated by the terror attacks on trains that killed 200 Madrid
commuters last week.

"The Spanish troops will come back," he added.

His stinging comments caused political shockwaves across Europe
and in the US. Sunday would go down in history as "the day when
Islamist fundamentalism was seen as dictating the outcome of a
European election", said Wilfried Martens, the head of the European
People's party, an umbrella group for European conservative parties.

Jonathan Eyal, the director of studies at the London-based Royal
United Services Institute, said if al-Qaida were responsible for last
week's bombs, Spain had become the first country "to have a prime
minister owing his position to Bin Laden".

As people across Europe paid three minutes' silent homage to the
victims of the Madrid attacks, the EU called an emergency conference
of interior ministers for Friday to discuss the implications of the
train bombings.

Spanish police concentrated their investigation on three
Moroccan men arrested on Saturday. One was reportedly identified by a
survivor who saw him on one of the trains.

It was also revealed that the same man, Jamal Zougam, was known
for his contacts with radical Islamists and al-Qaida suspects by
police and intelligence services in France, Spain and Morocco.
Spanish police searched his Madrid apartment in October 2001, finding
videotapes of jihad fighters and an interview with Osama bin Laden.

Speculation grew of a direct link between the Madrid attacks and
the group that killed 44 people in suicide bombings in Casablanca in
May as Spanish investigators travelled to Morocco.

There was no sign, however, that intelligence agencies were any
closer to identifying a man with a Moroccan accent who, in a
videotape found in Madrid on Saturday, had claimed responsibility for
the attack in al-Qaida's name.

The US acknowledged yesterday that the Madrid attack had been
carried out with the aid of Bin Laden's group.

"I'm satisfied there are connections to al-Qaida. The depth of
that connection and the total level of responsibility has not yet
been determined," said the homeland security undersecretary, Asa
Hutchinson.

Mr Zapatero said his victory was a direct consequence of support
by the outgoing prime minister, José María Aznar, for a "disastrous"
war in Iraq.

A bitter row continued over whether Mr Aznar's government had
tried to fool voters into thinking that the Basque separatist group
Eta was to blame for the attacks, an allegation that has drawn
indignant denials from his party.

Workers at the state news agency EFE demanded that news
executives be sacked for allegedly manipulating reporting of the
attacks to make it seem the Basque terrorist group was to blame.

The once pro-Aznar El Mundo newspaper criticised the outgoing
government for playing down evidence of al-Qaida's role in the
bombings.

Mr Bush called Mr Zapatero to congratulate him in an attempt to
calm the waters as the Socialist claimed Sunday's electoral
turnaround would have repercussions in the November US presidential
elections.

"The two leaders said they both looked forward to working
together, particularly on our shared commitment to fighting
terrorism," a White House spokesman said.

Mr Blair also had "friendly" telephone talks with him, according
to his spokesman.

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