Britain has been the main ally of the US in the Iraq War. But Spain is another European Union country that has backed the US effort there, and continues to do so. They have a small troop presence, but at least one Spanish soldier has died there so far.
The Spanish Minister of Defense, Frederico Trillo, was in Iraq this weekend. While there, he stressed that "Spain did not invade Iraq" and emphasized that their presence there was "solely a force of peace under the mandate of the UN." Presumably he was referring to the UN recognition of the status of the occupying powers, since the UN did not specifically authorize the invasion (although Minister Trillo apparently doesn't want to call it that).
He also insisted that the intervention in Iraq was necessary because of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction," even though none have been found. He made a weird analogy of the WMDs with Saddam Hussein. We used to see Saddam on TV, he said, and we knew he was there. Now we don't see him, but we can't locate him. "Something similar has happened with the weapons of mass destruction: the UN inspectors had proof that this arsenal existed; on the other hand, we haven't found it."
Statements like this are the kind of thing that tends to decrease a government's credibility. But Spain's ruling conservatives, the Partido Popular (PP), and their leader, Spanish President José María Aznar, haven't encountered the difficulties that Tony Blair has in Britain. In part, that's because Spain's military and financial commitment is much smaller.
But the war was very unpopular in Spain, more unpopular than in France or Germany according to the polls. On one weekend before the war began, as much as 5% of the total population of Spain was estimated to have participated in demonstrations against the war. And the postwar polls have reflected some loss in popular support for the PP.
Aznar was in Florida this past week, among other things asking Governor Jeb Bush to commute the death sentence of a Spanish citizen condemned to die there. Given that Aznar provided Jeb's brother in the White House an important part of what little international support he received on the Iraq War, it will be interesting to see if Jeb accommodates Aznar on his death penalty request.
Tags: death penalty, florida politics, iraq war, jeb bush, spain
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