Spain's ruling conservatives crashed to defeat in elections, becoming the first government that backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq to be voted out of office.
The win by the Socialists over PM Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party Sunday came amid charges that Aznar made Spain a target for attacks by Muslims by supporting the Iraq invasion.
Spain's incoming prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has pledged to bring home the 1,300 Spanish soldiers in Iraq when their tour of duty ends in July. "The occupation of Iraq is a disaster," Zapatero said Monday.
Zapatero added Bush and his main ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, need to engage in "self-criticism". "You can't bomb a people just in case" they pose a perceived threat, Zapatero said . "You can't organize a war on the basis of lies," he noted.
With 99 percent of the votes counted, the Socialists rose from 125 seats to 164 in the outgoing 350-seat legislature, The AP reported. The ruling Popular Party fell from 183 to 148.
On his part, Poland urged other states to keep their forces in Iraq. "Our general position is that everybody there should stay until the situation is stabilised," foreign ministry spokesman Boguslaw Majewski said, according to AFP.
"We can only hope the process of stabilisation will enable all of the forces to withdraw," he said Monday.
Meanwhile, international investigators believe the train bombing attacs that killed 200 people in Madrid last week were the work of a multinational cell of al Qaeda members, some of whom infilitrated into Spain specifically to launch these attacks, according to European and Arab intelligence sources, cited by the Monday's edition of The Washington Post.
The officials told the newspaper the initial investigation and interrogation of five arrested suspects -- three Moroccans and two Indians -- as well as other evidence indicated that the Thursday morning bombings were carried out by the al Qaeda network, marking the first time the group has struck in Europe.
Spanish officials have contacted security agencies across Europe and in the Arab world -- including in Morocco and Saudi Arabia -- in an effort to understand how the plot was devised and executed without even a general warning from intelligence services that al Qaeda members were about to strike in Spain, the newspaper added.
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
