Posted on 07/10/2006 7:11:08 AM PDT by jveritas
The millions of Iraqi documents that were captured in Iraq contain incredible amount of information, facts, and truth about Saddam regime. It is in these documents where we have been learning and will continue to learn about Saddam regime WMD and programs related to it as well as the incredibly strong relations between Saddam regime and terrorism.
The focus of the people working on the Iraqi documents should be mainly on the two issues. The first one is about Saddam WMD and programs related to it. The second issue is Saddam relation to terrorism. These two issues are strongly related and important to the ongoing political debate in the Iraq war and the more information and facts we get about it, the more it will support the case for going to the war and the removal of Saddam and his regime from power.
What to translate?
It is very important to translate the documents that are official and can be considered legitimate ones. An official or legitimate document is the one that has the name of the author, or it carries the seal or logo of a Saddam regime ministry or apparatus, like the Iraqi defense ministry, Iraqi Intelligence Service, Iraqi Air Force, Special Security Organization, Republican Guard, Saddam Feddaeyeens, Office of the Presidency, Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), companies that work for the MIC, etc… Fortunately the vast majority of the Iraqi documents posted on the Pentagon website either has the name of the author or has the logo of Saddam regime ministries or apparatus, or in most cases they carry both the author name and the seal or logo of a Saddam regime establishment.
However, there are few documents that have neither the name of the author (written by an unknown person) nor the official logo of a Saddam regime establishment, and these documents are not considered official ones regardless of what it contain and even if the content of such document seems important. Documents like these should not be considered as a proof of Saddam relation to terrorism if they talk about such a thing or Saddam WMD if they mention such a thing. In the court of public opinion these documents are weak because it is not official therefore it should not be weighed with importance. Diaries and notebooks of unnamed or unknown authors fall under this category of unofficial documents.
During my reading of tens of thousands of pages of the Iraqi documents, I came across some “unofficial” document as described above and I decided not to translate it for the reasons mentioned above, there is no reason to waste time or get all riled up about a document that is not official to start with.
How to translate?
The Arabic language is a complicated one and when reading and translating it, the translator must be careful not to misunderstand or misinterpret the real meaning. Sometimes a simple misinterpretation or misreading of one word can lead to a totally different meaning from what the document really intents. Also the finding of important things to translate can be cumbersome. In a document of 300 pages may be there are one or two pages that are worthy of translation and the remaining 99% of the document is not worthy to do it because it relate to administrative or financial matters. So the translators must read very carefully, and if necessary twice or trice so they make sure they did not miss anything important in the document.
Many of the documents, if not a majority of them, are handwritten ones, and sometimes it is hard to read some of the words, therefore special attention should be taken by the translator not to misread or misinterpret some of the words that can be hard to read or sometimes totally illegible.
When doing the translation, the translator must be armed with good knowledge of Iraq WMD programs, and in particular the Precursors to make WMD. For example there are many documents that talk about different Materials that can be a dual use, i.e. used for WMD or for civilian industries, and very special attention must be paid for these materials. The UN allowed Iraq to import some of these dual use materials under a very strict import regulations, however Iraq was absolutely prohibited to produce them locally even under a small scale production. The translator should flag a document whenever these materials that can be used to make WMD, mostly Chemical weapons, and to a lesser extent nuclear or biological weapons and put it into perspective. This again requires a hard reading of the documents to make sure that these facts are not missed.
Interpretation of the translations
The translated documents should be interpreted very carefully. People should avoid reading more into a document than what it means. Sometimes it is important to connect the dots but to create dots in order to connect and make a certain assumption is not a good way to in these documents. The best type of interpretation is the one that shows exactly what the document meant. People should avoid attributing things that the document does not contain because such interpretation can weaken the whole Iraq documents issue and it give another excuse for liberals and their media to dismiss it as whole including the very powerful documents that clearly demonstrate Saddam regime strong relation to terrorism or Saddam regime WMD and the programs related it.
I hope that the above will be used by translators and interpreters of the Iraqi documents so we can make a coherent and powerful case for these documents where in many instances it proves without a shadow of doubt that Saddam has incredibly strong relation to terrorism, that his regime was a terrorists regime that should have been removed after 9/11 because it was too dangerous to live with it. Also in many instances these documents proves without any doubt that Saddam even stopped his WMD programs and activities even if it was clandestine, and many documents already show that all his intent was to deceive the UN inspectors and prevent them from fully accessing his WMD capabilities, programs, or even stocks of WMD.
PING
Bumping for jveritas, a FReeper extraordinaire!
A guy robs a bank and takes hostages. He says he has a belt-bomb under his coat and will blow it if anyone tries to come in.
Do you?
a) Assume he has a bomb (WMD) and act accordingly?
b) Assume he does not have a bomb (WMD) and act accordingly?
Saddam acted like he had WMD and he was caught using WMD and he was hiding operations from the IAEA and U.N. Inspectors like he had WMD.
Whether he had them and slipped them into Syria (Sunni Bathists) or was bluffing is really irrelevant. Either way, we had to assume he had them, and enforce the UN Resolutions or we would have established that no level of defiance would be held accountable.
Fantastic job...but is anybody listening?
I've noticed the FNC has been trying to garner public interest in the translations and sent them the FR keyword prewardocs url this morning as an FYI, mentioning your screen name only as translator of numerous documents. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has emailed FOX with this info, but it isn't going to hurt to keep trying.
The Iraqi documents: How To Handle It
Release/Translation of Classified PreWar Docs ping. If you want to be added or removed to the ping list, please Freepmail me.
Please add the keyword prewardocs to any articles pertaining to this subject.
Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents
Documents from the Harmony Database
An Interview With a Citizen Translator and American Hero
Mark Eichenlaub Documenting Saddam Hussein's State Sponsorship of Terrorism
Not as many as we would like to see, but we need to keep fighting on and the truth will eventually get out.
Excellent, well-reasoned explication of the translation process you are using--provides good insight into your methods and criteria for evaluating these documents. Nice work as usual!
Good job of explaining your process of what to interpret and why.
And yes, I hope all those interpeting follow the same basic guidelines.
The lying liberals do not need another excuse to denounce yet more proof of Saddam's ties to terrorism and his WMD activity.
It can't be that hard. Just skip over the crap and go directly to the ones that show WMD and terrorists links.
Kidding. I know it's tough work. Can't thank you enough for doing it.
Stay the course.
Part of what I mentioned in the article above addresses what Foxnews.com has published so far regarding the Iraqi documents. Unfortunately what they have published so far do not constitute “official Iraqi documents” since the first three translations they published were based on a diary notebook by an unknown Iraqi intelligence, the fourth and most recent they published was a manual written by Al Qaeda that has nothing to do with Iraq.
You have done outstanding work, jveritas, and many of us thank you for your time and effort.
I agree with you that there are 2 issues:
1. Saddam & WMDs (especially precursors)
2. Saddam & terrorist connections (especially al qaeda or al qaeda intermediaries)
These two facts mean that Pres Bush HAD to take out the Saddam regime. It was that or have Saddam fund a terrorist to bring small quantities of WMD to America to kill 10's of thousands of people at a time.
The translated documents are revealing great insight into the Hussein regime's continued WMD programs and ties to terrorists organizations including al-Qaeda. The documents are speaking for themselves.
Let's all be very prudent in the analysis of these documents. One of the reasons I follow each of Jveritas' translated documents is to provide a degree of skepticism in order to be sure we have looked at each document from varying perspectives as to its true intent.
My hat is off to all of the translators out there. It is indeed a tough task with many hours involved. I thank you all for your hard work!
Thank you very much.
Agreed eyespy. We should not get so excited about documents that are weak and unofficial, it is not good for the cause and it weaken the whole Iraqi documents issue.
People should avoid reading more into a document than what it means.
Bears repeating.
Great post.
So they are a disappointment as well. Perhaps they will take a second look at your translations, as well as take appropriate heed of what you wrote above, as it will appear first in the list at the url I sent them.
That is a very critical point.
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