Media keeps getting it wrong
about the Madrid bombings

by Sue Davies
Shortly before the 2004 US elections, an Osama bin Laden video tape surfaced in which he (if it was him) reminded Americans they were still at risk from an Al Qaeda attack. The effect, of course, was to bundle votes in George Bush's direction and his opponent John Kerry has claimed since that that tape – more than the infamous Swift boaters – cost him the election

In Newsweek magazine later, Jonathan Alter had a piece speculating on whether Bin Laden could influence other US elections in the same way.

He concluded, "It's instructive that only three days after the 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid that killed 193, the most deadly act of Islamic terrorism in European history, the Spanish socialists won national elections. We aren't Spain, but we're also not a country that can have a whole election thrown into disarray by terrorists. At least I hope we aren't any more, though we won't know for sure unless it happens".

The implication was that the bombers panicked Spanish voters into throwing out the right-wing pro-Iraq war government. In the intervening years, I've seen several American and British commentators take this line (it seems George Bush believed that version, too).

Yet it is entirely wrong.

Within hours of the Madrid bombings, there were clear signs that Spaniards were rallying behind the right-wing PP government, in the same way that Americans rushed to show support for George Bush post-9/11. Had things stayed that way there is not much doubt that three days later the PP would have been returned, possibly with a landslide.

What changed things rapidy was the PP's sudden and astonishing claim that ETA, the Basque terrorists, were responsible (the PP had campaigned on a hardline attitude towards ETA so, if true, this claim would have boosted their electoral chances).

But the attack was nothing like ETA's usual pattern and many believed that Islamic fundamentalists were the more likely suspects (it has emerged since that a security services assessment that Islamics were to blame was with the PP before they made their ETA claim!).

The PP were roundly and rightly accused of cynically trying to use the 193 deaths for political advantage and overnight the national mood changed. And that is why the socialists won more support.

* There has been speculation since that the intention of the 2004 Bin Laden tape was actually a cunning ploy to get Bush re-elected, his foreign policy disasters making him a far more effective recruiting sergeant for Al-Qaeda than Kerry would have been. If so, it worked a charm!