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All In The Translation: Leaked Spanish Memo Does NOT Show Bush “Planned To Invade Iraq No Matter What”

September 27th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Yesterday we carried a post on reports about leaked Spanish memo that reportedly showed that in a private conversation President George Bush indicated he wanted to invade Iraq no matter what to take out Saddam Hussein.

But a new translation indicates that was a bad translation and that was not the case. The Spain-based Barcepundit reports:

MUCH IS BEING MADE of the scoop by pro-Zapatero’s daily El País, in Madrid, of the transcript of the memo of a conversation between Bush and Spain’s former PM Aznar in Crawford in March 2003 as the Iraq war was about to start. Editor and Publisher has a machine translation, which is quite atrocious. If you can read Spanish, the full text is here. I’ll try to have a proper translation asap, but I am really short on time, so I don’t know how soon I’ll have it ready.

But what the transcript doesn’t say, no matter the headlines, is that Bush was going to invade even if Saddam complied. What it says is that the US would be in Iraq in mid-March whether there was a second UN resolution or not, one that Bush said he would try to get by all means, which is an entirely different matter. As everybody knows, there’s certainly a debate on whether the first resolution was enough or not -many reputable experts think it was, though there’s not unanimity on this, certainly. But the issue is different.

Further down he writes:

If anything, the transcript proves precisely the opposing point that critics want to make. The conversation shows both Bush and Aznar trying to avoid war; that they were concerned of its human toll, and that Saddam wanted to flee with money… and WMD information. I guess all the people who are trumpeting this will stop saying now that Bush lied and mislead us on the WMD issue. Won’t hold my breath, though.

Read the post in its entirety (he offers parts in Spanish as well) and judge for yourself.

Note: I lived and wrote from Spain for 4 years. A translation can indeed alter the meaning significantly of the original statement or document.

Another view on this (that takes a swipe at the magazine that reported the original) comes from Jules Crittenden.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 6:11 am and is filed under Spain, George W. Bush, Iraq, War. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 responses about “All In The Translation: Leaked Spanish Memo Does NOT Show Bush “Planned To Invade Iraq No Matter What””

  1. C Stanley said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 7:12 am

    Kudos for posting this instead of letting the original story stand with your readers, Joe.

    On the issue of translations, I’m reminded of a story a friend who’s an interpreter told me. She was telling me that even within the Spanish language there are dialectical differences that lead to problems; for example, she once was translating and the speaker used a phrase something like “taking matters into one’s own hands” and when the audience cracked up after she translated that she realized that she’d used a phrase which, to that audience, was an idiom for male masturbation LOL.

  2. Mr.Moderate said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    I don’t think it was a translation issue at all. It was a misrepresentation of the original transcript in the headline. I think it is a case of misinterpretation. If anything it shows Bush having a fuller grasp of the impact his policy had but still clinging to an overly rosy perception of how well they planned for the post-Saddam period. He tells Anzar that the post-Saddam period has been fully planned. Looking at the data from that period that was clearly false. It also shows that he really believed they were going to find WMD all over the place, again because of the overly optimistic analysis they had been squeezing out of the intelligence agencies.

  3. Entropy said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 9:51 am

    Joe,

    As I pointed out in the original post, the original translation didn’t say Bush would attack if Iraq complied either.

    Furthermore, I don’t understand the translation problem - wouldn’t Bush’s remarks have been in English to begin with? If the original English wasn’t written down then what we’re looking at is a translation from English to Spanish and then back to English. Not surprising there will be mistakes.

  4. domajot said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 10:46 am

    AW, shucks!
    You mean we can’t rant about this anymore?

  5. Ooooops, sorry, wrong translation at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source. said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    […] where credit is do, Joe Gandelman made sure to point out the translation differences over at the Moderate Voice. ” All In The Translation: Leaked Spanish Memo Does NOT Show Bush “Planned To Invade Iraq […]

  6. Tully said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 2:50 pm

    Believing translations before they’ve been vetted is like believing Drudge Report specials before they’ve been confirmed. You’re rolling the dice.

  7. Nikolay said:
    September 27th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

    I guess all the people who are trumpeting this will stop saying now that Bush lied and mislead us on the WMD issue. Won’t hold my breath, though.

    This is beyond stupid. Bush didn’t lie about WMDs because there are words of Bush here to prove that he was right? That’s quite a logic.

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