As Spain Withdraws, Italy Pledges to Keep Troops In Iraq

In the same week Berlusconi held talks with U.S. President George Bush in Washington, the Italian parliament on Thursday voted to keep troops in Iraq till order was restored in the country, turning down opposition demands that the 3,000 soldiers deployed there be recalled.

Berlusconi, who has been under mounting pressure to pull out Italian troops from Iraq following a similar move by Spain, the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal and the first combat loss of an Italian solider in Iraq earlier this week, remained defiant.

"Italy will remain in Iraq until it can govern itself in security and freedom and until the bandits and terrorists, who have been sowing death and fear for more than a year and preventing democratic elections in Iraq, are wiped out," he said to applause from his center-right coalition.

Pulling out sooner would be an "outrage to the honor of the fallen and to the magnificent work of our military and civilian workers," the premier said. "Withdrawal now means abandoning to chaos a crucial country in the Middle East."

Spanish pull-out almost complete

Berlusconi's announcement coincided with the withdrawal of the last Spanish troops from their base in Diwaniya, Iraq according to the Spanish Defense Ministry. Spanish news agency Efe said the Spanish general in charge of the unit transferred control of so-called Base Espana in south-central Iraq to U.S. forces Thursday night.

Spain's new socialist government led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which came to power in March elections for pledging to pull out the 1,300 Spanish soldiers deployed in Iraq, followed up on the election promise and began withdrawing troops in May.

Stronger role for U.N.

Berlusconi, one of the strongest allies of the U.S. in the war against Iraq, also underlined that there was a clear timetable for the handover of power to the Iraqis that envisioned a larger role for the U.N. in the coming weeks.

The Italian premier added that a candidate had already been identified to head a "new, credible authoritative" Iraqi interim government, but he had to yet accept the post. U.S. President Bush announced on Wednesday that the representatives of the Iraqi interim government would be selected in the next two weeks.

Berlusconi announced that a new U.N. resolution on Iraq would be tabled in the first weeks of June. "The new resolution will bestow international legitimacy on the new government, which will change the legal basis of the presence of foreign troops and mark the end of the occupation," he said.

The Italian premier added he hoped that Islamic countries would also participate in the coalition of foreign troops in Iraq.

Peace mission a sham

However Berlusconi's decision to keep troops in Iraq is not likely to go down well in Italy, where popular opinion has swung sharply against the war in recent months.

A survey published Thursday in La Repubblica, a left-leaning daily, showed that 59 percent of Italians want the troop withdrawn even if the United Nations asks Italy to remain in Iraq after transfer of power on June 30.

Opposition Italian politicians in the lower chamber, who had tabled a motion calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops, however said that Berlusconi's portrayal of the Iraq deployment as a peace mission was a sham.

"The Italian parliament had approved a peace mission in Iraq -- instead of that we're now caught up in a war there that has led to the fact that we are being perceived as occupiers and enemies by the Iraqis," said Piero Fassino, leader of the main opposition party, the Democrats of the Left.