The Spanish newspaper, El Pais, has released the "secret" transcript of a meeting former Spanish President Aznar had with Bush in February, 2003, back at the ranch in Crawford, Texas. The record of the meeting must have been leaked by someone in the Spanish government. It makes Bush look pretty bad, and well, Aznar by association. Bush actually referred to French President Chirac as "Mister Arab." Then he threatened (indirectly) several members of the UN Security Council with retaliation if they didn’t vote for a second Iraq resolution, and then said we’d invade Iraq anyway, even if they did veto the silly resolution. No matter what, he said,
"We will be in Baghdad by the end of March."
The meeting was concerning a second resolution on Iraq by the Security Council. It seems that Blair had pushed for one last diplomatic effort, and, according to El Pais, Aznar had traveled to Mexico in a failed attempt to get President Fox on board. He then went on to Crawford, Texas. The transcript they have provided seems to be an extract of the meeting rather than a full transcript. They haven’t published a copy of the actual document, and they don’t say why.
The most important point would be that this meeting was about getting a second Iraq resolution from the United Nations Security Council, but Bush clearly states that we would go to war with or without that resolution, and that it would be soon.
"The time has come to get rid of Saddam." "If someone vetoes [the resolution], we’ll go in."
President Aznar really wanted to get that resolution adopted, and he was also very interested in helping with the wording so that Spain would be a co-sponsor, and he might get other countries to sponsor it. Bush really didn’t care what the resolution said.
"I don’t care much about the content," he said.
Aznar seems to have been very self-conscious of his role on the world stage, and I think he was relishing it.
"What we are doing is a profound change for Spain... we are changing the policies that Spain has followed for the last 200 years."
Bush for his part, also proclaimed to be guided by a sense of historic responsibility.
"When in a few years history judges us, I don’t want people to look back and ask why Bush, or Aznar, or Blair didn’t stand up to their responsibilities."
Personally, I doubt that this has all worked out for them the way they imagined.
The transcript of the meeting is surprising in a few other ways. Bush is erratic, at times he sounds down right presidential, but then he switches to being impatient, even petulant. When Aznar mentions that he will meet with French President Chirac the following Wednesday, February 16, Bush explains that Chirac knows what has to be done, because French intelligence has explained it to him, and the Arabs are also telling Chirac that Saddam has got to go.
"The problem is that Chirac thinks he’s Mister Arab, when in reality he’s just making their lives impossible."
[Ooops.] Then he changes his tone and says he doesn’t want any problems with Chirac.
"Give him my best regards. No, really! The less rivalry he feels there is between us the better for everyone."
At one point, when Aznar is asking for more details on the timing of the resolution and the upcoming UN weapons inspectors’ report, Condi Rice explains it to him. She did say that they were talking to Hans Blix and others on his team to get ideas that would help introduce the resolution. She also said,
"I have the impression that Blix will be more negative than he was before about the will of the Iraqis."
The written report would be presented on March 1st, they’ll testify March 6 or 7, and we would plan the vote on the resolution a week later. (Wow, I don't know if they'll make it before the end of March!) She then explains that Iraq will, of course, claim they are complying, but that this would be neither true nor sufficient. Bush then proclaims:
"This is like Chinese water torture! We’ve got to put an end to it."
It isn’t clear if was referring to the Iraqi demurrals, or to the meeting he was attending, or both.
As to the timing of the UN resolution, Aznar pointed out that
"Tony [Blair] would hold off until March 14."
Bush responded:
"I prefer the 10th. This is like playing good cop/bad cop. It doesn’t bother me if I’m the bad cop and Blair is the good one."
As the El Pais writer pointed out, Bush was even threatening at one point, toward other members of the Security Council.
"Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola and Cameroon should know that what’s at play here is the security of the United States, and they should act with a sense of friendship toward us."
Because if they don’t... the Free Trade Pact with Chile just might not get confirmed, and Angola might not get any more money from the "Millenium Account." Oh, yes, and
"Putin should know that with his attitude he’s endangering relations between Russia and the United States."
I wonder if Bush meant for these diplomatic messages to be relayed by President Aznar to these other friendly nations, and did he relay them?
When Bush was sounding presidential, he said several things which would inspire confidence in his plan. Everything was planned. Even though he said we knew that the Iraqis had stockpiled explosives to blow up bridges, infrastructure, and oil wells,
"We can win without destruction."
We had plans to occupy those oil wells very quickly, but if necessary, the Saudis were willing to pump more oil into the market to make up for it. We were apparently preparing a very strong package of humanitarian aid, and we were planning for the future of Iraq:
"We’re already planning for a Post-Saddam Iraq, and I think there are good foundations for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a relatively strong civil society. It could be organized into a federation."
Bush told Aznar at the time that Saddam Hussein wanted to leave Iraq. Egypt’s Mubarak had said that Saddam had talked to him about exile in Egypt, if they would let him leave with a billion dollars. Even Qadafi had told Berlusconi that Saddam wanted out. Aznar seems to have favored that solution. He said:
"In reality, it would be the greatest success to win the game without firing a shot or going into Baghdad."
Bush rejected that possibility, however.
He (Saddam) is "a thief, a terrorist and a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be Mother Theresa. When we go in, we’re going to discover many more crimes, and we’re going to take him to the International Court of Justice in The Hague."
Most of what Bush said that day didn’t come to pass, except for the part about going in with or without that resolution. That was true.
What does this mean for Bush? Probably nothing. There really isn’t anything new there. I believe Bush had decided to invade Iraq long before this meeting on February 22, 2003, and I think most of us know that. Would any of this make a difference to the so-called "28 percenters"? I doubt it. In Spain, however, it may have a political impact. Bush is even less popular in Spain, and keeping the Aznar/Bush/Iraq relationship in the minds of the voters may hurt Aznar’s party (again), and help Zapatero gain re-election. On the other hand, conservatives in Spain will spin it hard: Don’t focus on the fact that Aznar was helping Bush plan a war. Focus on how hard he tried to reach a diplomatic solution. I doubt that will work.
(Note that the quotes I have used here are my translations of quotes from the transcript as printed in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais. They are not quotes from the original document, which I have not seen.)
Update 9/27/03: TPM has been watching this story since it came out, and today David Kurtz points out that the White House was asked about the transcript described above and neither confirmed nor denied it's authenticity. The Washington Post is also reporting that
"A spokesman for Aznar's private foundation had no comment on the transcript or its authenticity."
The story has now been picked up by several other mainstream news outlets such as USAToday and MSNBC, but I notice it seems to be mostly on their informal "blog" sections, and not yet front page news.