4/19/2004: Spain's new Prime Minister Zapatero has announced that all 1,400 Spanish troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within the next few weeks. Honduran President Maduro responded by announcing that Honduras will remove its 370 troops from Iraq "in the shortest time possible" and the Dominican Republic has also announced the immediate withdraw of its 300 troops. Thailand has announced that if they are attacked, it will withdraw its 451 medical and engineering troops and there are reports that Poland may pull out its 2,500 soldiers at the end of the year.

On June 30th, the US claims it will hand "limited sovereignty" to the Iraqis, but this will mean little to most Iraqis since it will be a change in name only. Neocons in the US appear to be trying "to turn an Iraq scandal over the oil-for-food program into a reason why the UN should stay out of Iraq." After June 30th, neither the international community or the new "Iraqi government" will have any say in the actions of the over 100,000 US troops in the country, the new "Iraqi government" will have no power to make or change laws and real power will be in the hands of the US ambassador. On April 19th, Bush announced that he will nominate John Negroponte for this role. Negroponte is currently ambassador to the UN and was the US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 through 1985. According to The New York Times, Negroponte was responsible for "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinistas government in Nicaragua." "Negroponte supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras and which critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site. " John Negroponte "worked closely with General Alvarez, Chief of the Armed Forces in Honduras, to enable the training of Honduran soldiers in psychological warfare, sabotage, and many types of human rights violations, including torture and kidnapping." In 1994, the Honduran Rights Commission "specifically accused John Negroponte of a number of human rights violations."
DisInfopedia on John Negroponte | Global Research on John Negroponte