US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair “need to engage in some self-criticism” on their decision to launch a war against Iraq, according to Spain’s prime minister-elect, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. “The troops who are in Iraq will come home,” Zapatero insisted. Zapatero also vowed to fight terrorism in all its forms. Spain’s new government will assume control of the bombing investigation from the defeated conservative Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. His win was seen, in part, as due to voter fury at the government’s information policy, which blamed the Basque separatist movement ETA for the attacks despite evidence that Islamists may have caused the carnage. Some 90 per cent of Spaniards opposed Aznar’s decision to join the US-led coalition to oust Saddam Hussein and millions took to the streets in protest in February last year.
