House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said Spain was "a nation that succumbed . . . to threats of terrorism, changed their government."
"Here's a country that stood against terrorism and had a huge terrorist act within their country, and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists," Hastert said.
Added GOP US Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee: "The vote in Spain was a great victory for Al Qaeda."
House majority leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, expressed his condolences to the people of Spain, particularly to the victims of last week's deadly railway bombings. But DeLay said he hoped Rodriguez Zapatero will come to believe in the US position -- "that Iraq is central to winning" the fight against terrorism. "If we follow the example of the new Spanish government and we accept failure in Iraq and permit the victory of the terrorists there, there will be no counting the number of people around the world who will suffer the consequences," he said.
The lawmakers' comments were harsher than those coming from the White House in recent days.
When Bush was asked Tuesday whether the Spanish vote gave terrorists reason to believe that they can influence elections and policy, he replied: "I think terrorists will kill innocent life in order to try to get the world to cower. I think these are cold-blooded killers."
Rodriguez Zapatero was asked how he might respond if Bush asked him to reconsider pulling Spanish troops from Iraq. "I will listen to Mr. Bush, but my position is very firm and very clear," he said.
"Combating terrorism with bombs, with operations of shock and awe, with Tomahawk missiles, is not the way to beat terrorism. . . . It is a way of generating more radicalism, more people who can wind up being tempted by using violence," Rodriguez Zapatero told Onda Cero radio.
