The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, defended this Tuesday that the military was in the areas affected by DANA in Valencia.
“I want to be clear, not for me who assumes criticism, but for the soldiers who have been on the front line since the first moment. Since emergency level 2 was declared for the specific area of Utiel, it “There were already 96 soldiers working there. When at 9 p.m. the incident spread throughout Valencia, the soldiers asked them to be present in all areas,” he said. he declared.
This was stated by Robles during an appearance at the Senate plenary held at the request of the PP to report on his management of DANA which hit the Valencian Community.
Last Tuesday, the parliamentary group requested the full appearance of the minister to report on the work of her department in relation to the recent disaster and its effects in different autonomous communities.
During her appearance, the Minister of Defense insisted on the fact that “From the first moment the soldiers were in the assigned area and they will be there until the citizens tell us to leave.”
Robles offers 120,000 soldiers to help in DANA
Thus, Robles assured that The 120,000 soldiers who make up the Armed Forces are ready to help in the areas affected by DANA when their commanders decide, because, as he admitted: “this will last a long time”. The recovery of Valencia “takes a lot of time and our soldiers will be there,” Robles stressed.
The minister thus responded in the plenary session of Congress to a question from Vox deputy Javier Ortega Smith, who asked her why she had not activated all the necessary soldiers from the first minute, but had rather sent them “drop by drop”. “.
Robles emphasized that “It’s not a problem of numbers but of capabilities and explained that those who were sent had already had to be relieved”, so the overall figure is already double the number of soldiers, Robles added. The minister pleaded for “strict” compliance with the law against “Civil protection no, bulls better” from PP and Vox when they were government partners of the Valencian Community.
“We continue to respect the National Civil Protection System and the Valencians must know that the military will continue to work” in an emergency, he stressed. For his part, Ortega Smith accused the government of neglecting its functions in the management of the disaster and considered that there was no other solution than to declare a situation of interest for national security and to having taken sole command of the response to the disaster. .emergency.+
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