According to a spokesman for the winning Spanish socialist party, Zapatero (the prime minister elect) will take Spanish troops out of Iraq on June 30 — the day the Coalition Provisional Authority is scheduled to turn over power to an interim Iraqi government.
The PM-elect has said: Spanish troops should never have been in Iraq, because there was no U.N. resolution authorizing military action.
He also told a Spanish radio station that no decision would be taken until he was in power and without wide political consultation.
“But the Spanish troops in Iraq will come home,” he added.
Outgoing prime minister Jose Maria Aznar was a key European ally of the Bush administration, taking his country to war even though polls showed 90% of the Spanish people were against it.
