In conversation with Fox News – onboard AirForce One on the recent United States’ visit to China – Secretary of State Marco Rubio dropped a clanger that has left the Portuguese government scrambling to effect damage limitation.
After all the assertions that Lajes Air Base in the Azores would not be used by the United States for ‘offensive actions’ against Iran – and that every request for the passage of ‘lethal air power’, would be carefully considered before permission granted – Mr Rubio blew this narrative aside, with the comment that Portugal “said yes even before they even knew what the question was”.
This gels with the last passage of killer drones through the base. Here, the press reported that Portugal was considering a new request for the drones’ passage through Lajes, and on the very night of the reports, the drones landed at the base for refuelling, taking off hours later.
Whether or not permission was given was never referred to again by national media.
Rubio’s comments will thus have been deeply embarrassing. He made them in reference Spain – the first country to refuse the U.S. permission to use its airbases in the early days of the Middle East conflict – telling Fox that other countries had been “very helpful”, giving the example of Portugal.
Within hours, the ministry of foreign affairs “contradicted” Marco Rubio’s assertions, writes Expresso – with a follow-up sentence that shows this contradiction is not all that it seems. “The Portuguese government clarifies that the authorisation was only given after the attack on Iran and was conditional on compliance with specific requirements, which “were immediately made public and are known”.
Digging themselves a deeper hole, the ministry then said that it did not know if any of the statements made by Mr Rubio referred to other countries…
As Expresso recalls, Minister for Foreign Affairs Paulo Rangel has said in the past that authorisation for the use of Lajes Air Base in the context of the war with Iran is subject to three “essential requirements”:
- The base can only be used in response to an attack, on a defensive or retaliatory basis
- Action has to be necessary and proportional
- Targets can only be of a military nature.
These essential requirements would, for example, preclude the “obliteration of an entire civilisation” (one of the threats made by President Trump, ahead of the current ceasefire with Iran).
Expresso adds that, in spite of the government’s assertions, there were “several flights of American aircraft through Lajes, even before Portugal began with its authorisation on three conditions policy. “In the weeks leading up to the offensive in Iran there was an increase in the activity of planes at Lajes Air Base, which intensified during the eve of the attack. On this day, February 27 (…) two KC-46 refuelling planes took off from the Azores at lunchtime, returning at night; the following day, there were five more flights of identical aircraft, with the attack already underway; on the political level, that Friday afternoon, the U.S. government informally contacted the (Portuguese) government to say that it might need authorisation to use the base in a conflict context, but the green light was only given on Saturday, at the end of the day.”
These seven refueling flights were carried out under a “tacit” authorisation from the Portuguese authorities, says the paper ,and without considering the need for a “prior authorisation” foreseen in the Cooperation and Defense Agreement for the use of the Lajes Base, which would only be applied from Saturday night onwards.
According to statements from government members, these aircraft were not used in war support operations, despite being the same refueling planes that were used on March 1 (Sunday), already with the government’s “conditional” agreement in effect for Lajes to be used in the context of conflict.
“No means have been used in any attack from the Azores until now. We are absolutely certain,” Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, assured CNN.
Carrying an image of Mr Rangel looking less than confident, Jornal de Notícias carries its version of this story, concluding “The use of Lajes Air Base for support in the United States/ Israeli offensive against Iran has been highly criticised domestically, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under scrutiny for authorising its use, on the basis of ‘established protocols’. According to the government, authorisation was only granted after Iran’s military response to the U.S./ Israeli attacks, and thus was considered ‘defensive’.”
Leftist website Esquerda.net has just come out and said what many will have been thinking: “The government has turned Portugal into a lapel for illegal warfare.” In its text today, the online refers to Left Bloc MP Fabien Figueiredo saying in parliament this morning that “the government of the United States gives Portugal as an example of subservience” while “the Portuguese people are paying the price of this irresponsible war at the fuel pumps, in the supermarkets and with their mortgages”.
Since this text went up online, SIC Notícias has referred to the debate in parliament this morning, where PS parliamentary leader Eurico Brilhante Dias described the situation as “a humiliation of planetary proportions”. The AD government “has always cowered, always cowered. It has never been clear” over the United States’ use of Lajes Air Base, he said.
Sources: Expresso/ Jornal de Notícias/ Esquerda.net