THE MARCH 11 parliamentary commission has ended the testimony phase and has begun to compile its report. The Popular party had asked for more investigations, but the ruling Socialist party (in the opposition at the time of the attacks) has blocked any new appearances. It makes one wonder why, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, Reuters has a surprisingly interesting article explaining why the commission has poisoned the political waters of the country while failing to shed any significant light on the investigations:

Disillusionment among ordinary Spaniards has grown as Spain's two main parties have traded accusations of trying to exploit the bombings, which killed 191 people, at elections three days later which swept the Socialists to power.

Even by Spanish standards, the commission has helped drag politics to new depths of bitterness by giving politicians the floor to trade barbs and blame while failing to come to any conclusions over the attacks.

The opposition conservatives now predict the Socialists' minority government will soon fall.

"The commission has dragged out the mood of the (March 14) elections, which were very bitter, and it has raised political tensions instead of helping to understand what took place," said Juan Diez, head of Madrid-based analysts ASEP.

"People are seeing politicians shouting at one another and not listening," said Diez. ""There is a lack of manners, respect and political culture ... Citizens should not see a political debate being carried out like a cheap gossip show."

Police commanders, intelligence chiefs and the current and previous prime ministers were among a parade of witnesses called before the commission, which began its hearings in June. A High Court judge has led a separate criminal investigation.

ACCUSATIONS FLY

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero accused the previous government of "massive deceit" for initially blaming Basque separatist guerrilla group ETA despite clear signs Islamic militants planned the attacks in retaliation for Spain's role in the Iraq war.

Former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who stepped down at March's polls, accused the Socialists of exploiting the attacks to snatch a shock victory while he tried to catch the bombers.

The article is not bad, as I said, but it still leaves out several other significant reasons why quite a few people are unhappy at how the probe was carried. For example that one key witness, while he denied under oath having spoken with any of the members of the commission before his testimony, had in fact been speaking the day before he went on stage with one of the commissioners for the Socialist party; or that the new anti-terrorist chief (a young police officer of a local precinct who was promoted to the post by Zapatero even though he didn't have any experience on terrorism issues) spent the day before his appearance at the commission in the Socialist party's HQ preparing his testimony; or the coverup of several high profile law enforcement officers who denied knowing anything about the explosives trade between mine workers and the Islamist terrorists or who failed to disclose at the commission several warnings from informants, but several wiretaps revealed afterwards showed that they knew about everything and apparently did nothing (and the fact that these officers had ties to the death squads and dirty war against ETA during the previous Socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez between 1982 and 1996 makes all of this much more troubling). Or the alleged suicide in very strange circumstances of one of these informants' girlfriend, who drowned herself in the sea while being watched for 45 minutes by several police officers who didn't do anything to stop her. The informant is now under protection by several bodyguards.

Not only are there these weird developments, but the most troubling thing is that the Zapatero government and his parliamentary allies are refusing to investigate any further and therefore voting to end the bombings probe.

No wonder a significant part of the Spanish population is unhappy at how the commission went.

Meanwhile, more and more arrests of suspected Islamic terrorists are taking place, and Zapatero has raised the official alert status for the Christmas (incidentally, you all should have heard what people were saying each time Bush did the same: "He's exploiting the fear of the Americans!" and so on). In his unique approach, ZP announced the exact day and time when the heightened alert will end (I guess terrorists will only have to wait to the next day after that), and has irked the police forces (link in Spanish) because he publicly announced the special security plan before telling them about it and what would the special measures would be.

I guess you could call that 'exploting the fear of the population' if it had been done by evil Bu$hitler.

But then again, it may have something to do with this risk assessment (pdf file in French; a short summary in English here) by Bussels' European Strategic Intelligence & Security Center.