KERRY O'BRIEN: In terms of the support that you've received from your allies in Iraq, you must be worried at the implications of Spain's threat - apparent determination - to withdraw its troops from Iraq, at the spectacle for that matter of an ally like Spain describing the occupation of Iraq as a fiasco?
[US Deputy Secretary of State] RICHARD ARMITAGE: Well, we've had conversations with Mr Zapatero.
My own view is a little different from yours.
I saw several million Spaniards holding their hands up the other day in the wake of the terrible Madrid bombing and what I saw was not people holding their hands up in surrender, but holding their hands up against terrorism.
I think in the long run, terrorists have awakened what's going to turn out to be a virulent enemy for them in Spain.
We'll see as we move forward.
It's the Prime Minister's right to remove his troops.
I notice that he did say that he would remove the troops if there were not some sort of unspecified UN mandate.
I think we've got a while to go and we'll see how it plays out.
I'm glad the Bush administration agrees that the Spanish election was about how, not if, terror should be fought.
No comments:
Post a Comment