Thursday
Jan062005
Acevedo Vilá says Get U.S. out of Iraq
Thursday, January 6, 2005 at 03:59PM
(AP) SAN JUAN - Puerto Rico's governor-elect said Wednesday he is
against the war in Iraq and wants all troops -- including islanders --
pulled out of the troubled country. Speaking the day after he was
officially certified as winner of the Nov. 2 election following a
recount and legal battle over disputed ballots that dragged on for
nearly two months, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá also called for a U.S. troop
withdrawal plan within six months. ''In terms of the reasons given for
the war and where we are right now, I don't think it was the right
decision,'' Acevedo Vilá, 42, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
``There were no weapons of mass destruction. Almost everybody agrees
that Iraq was not a real threat even to their neighbors. And now we
have learned there is no real exit strategy.'' 'If it's an unfair war,
it's unfair to everybody,'' he said. ``I would love to see a plan that
within six months we have a real international force and that the level
of all U.S. troops including Puerto Ricans will go down.'' At least 23
Puerto Ricans have been killed in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, including an Army specialist killed by a roadside bomb on
Monday in Baghdad. Nearly 54,000 Puerto Ricans serve in the armed
forces, although the U.S. Caribbean territory's 4 million people cannot
vote for U.S. president and have no vote in U.S. Congress. [more]