Spain's defense minister shot down over Nato gaffe - by Elizabeth Nash
On a morale-boosting trip to troops in Kosovo last week, Ms Chacón, Spain's first female defence chief and a star of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's majority female cabinet, declared: "The mission has been completed and it's time to return home." But her announcement burst like a bombshell among Nato officials, the US administration and senior diplomats who complained she had acted unilaterally and failed to inform them through the proper channels. The diplomatic gaffe is a reverse of fortune for Ms Chacón, 38, who made headlines when she took office last April and reviewed her troops while heavily pregnant. During a visit to Spanish soldiers in Afghanistan, images of this slight figure with her bump, her smock fluttering in the desert breeze, signaled a new mood of equality in Spain. She promptly purged the top brass, reformed and humanized Spain's discredited armed forces which became, within months, one of the country's most valued institutions. Spain has about 600 troops in Kosovo as part of a UN mission that includes some 15,500 soldiers from Nato members and allies.
Note EU-Digest: There is nothing wrong for a government official in making a gaffe every now and then when they are at least showing they are doing a good job for their country, which Ms Chacón certainly has done so far. As to NATO getting their feathers ruffled , who really cares?
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