JOSE Maria Aznar has defended his decision to lead Spain into the Iraq war. 

Jose Maria Aznar
IRAQ: Aznar (right) defends taking Spain to war

The ex-PP prime minister did so despite polls showing more than 90% of Spaniards didn’t support the war.

He also admitted that the decision to take Spain to war was motivated by wanting to build closer ties with America.

“In terms of influence and international support for our goals, Spain came out a winner,” wrote Aznar in a letter.

“Since taking office, the strengthening of relations with the United States was a priority.

“It was strategically good for Spain and stemmed from a basic sense of political reciprocity – you cannot ask a friend for help and then later, when that same friend asks you for something, say no.”

PP lost the 2004 election after claiming the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people were the work of ETA rather than Islamic extremists.

Subscribe to the Olive Press

2 COMMENTS

  1. For those 2004 elections the PP candidate was Rajoy, so the PP lost the elections, not Aznar who said before winning his first elections vs Gonzalez that he would only be president for two rounds. Mistake, ignorance or simply malevolence, this article content should be edited or erased; for the common good.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.