Defense and Interior Ministers Clash Publicly Over Whether Spain's Intelligence Service Warned of the Crossing

A dispute broke into the open between Defense Minister Margarita Robles and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska over whether Spain's intelligence service (CNI) had warned the government before the July 30 mass crossing. Robles said intelligence had been communicated verbally to the government a day earlier, concerning a call for migrants to gather and exploit Moroccan festivities to attempt the crossing. Marlaska said no CNI report, nor one from an allied service, anticipated what happened. The PSOE later said the two ministers' accounts 'can be true at the same time' but denied the CNI had warned of the crossing's ultimate scale.