Friday, September 28, 2007



"The time has come to get rid of him. That's the way it is"

Spanish newspaper El Pais has published a remarkable transcript [Spanish] of a pre-war conversation between US President George Bush and then-Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, in which Bush makes it clear that his diplomatic efforts to get a UN resolution authorising the use of force in Iraq were a sham, and that he had already made his mind up to invade. The money quotes: "The time has come to get rid of him. That's the way it is... There are two weeks left. In two weeks we will be ready militarily. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March".

European Tribune has a backtranslation from the Spanish here, while Booman also has a translation of the accompanying article.