White House Blames Bad Arabic Translation for Confusion Over Agreement with Iraq

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress, via AlterNet:




White House Blames Bad Arabic Translation for Confusion Over Agreement with Iraq

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 2:12 PM on March 14, 2008.

The truth is that White House officials tried to undermine Congress on Iraq and were forced to muster a weak excuse when they were caught.




In November, President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki signed a non-binding “Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship” that committed America to defending Iraq:

Supporting the Republic of Iraq in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats.

Providing security assurances and commitments to the Republic of Iraq to deter foreign aggression against Iraq that violates its sovereignty and integrity of its territories, waters, or airspace.
At the time, the White House said that the unprecedented arrangement would not need “input” from Congress.

After facing intense criticism from lawmakers, the White House backed off, recently stating that arrangement is “not going to have a security guarantee.” Officials are now trying to come up with excuses to explain away their initial bumbling as well. Their latest? The long-term agreement was incorrectly translated from Arabic to English. Politico reports:

But the senior administration official, who briefed two Politico reporters on the condition that he not be identified by name, said that the “security assurances” phrase “was something we struggled with, it really was.” He said the original Arabic phrase was “translated in kind of an interesting way,” and that a better translation might have been, “We'll consult.”

This excuse seems unlikely. First, White House officials have never before mentioned it. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) said that the administration “certainly did not speak to this unfortunate translation from Arabic” when it briefed senators on the planned agreement recently. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) also said that he hadn’t heard the argument. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/79758/

[annabanana]

1. The "White House" speaks with a mouth full of bullshit. . .

If that is the source of ANY information, you may assume that the opposite is true.

[Ian David]

2. All the GOOD translators were gay. n/t

[tanyev]

3. This really is the Dog-Ate-My-Homework Administration.

[auburngrad82]

4. Except that most of the Iraqis in Parliament speak better English than we do

And definitely better than W, who had to shorten his name so he would be able to spell it.

[lame54]

5. It's hard to translate Asinine into Arabic