I wonder as well. Just a sop to someone who tried to learn a few pharases? Or did he wish to praise Wilson publicly for some other reason to ingratiate himself? In any event, most of these meetings with a head of state like Saddam include an American notetaker who usually speaks the language. Glaspie wouldn't have needed a translator per se, but she would have been wise to have one whom she could trust.
Another thing I notice is that according to Al-Zubaydi's account Glaspie didn't know enough not to expose the soles of her feet to someone in an Arab country. I'm not an Arabist and even I know that's considered rude. Either Glaspie wasn't such a great Arabist after all, or Al-Zubaydi is trying to make her look bad for some reason--but curiously, in the same breath he speaks well of Wilson.
The feet business is overdone. I can remember going to a meeting with a Saudi official for the first time, and he proceeded to show me the soles of his feet. Many of these officials are Westernized and not offended or concerned by these so-called no-nos.
On a related note, in Wilson's book and lectures (e.g. Politics of Truth, 100), when speaking on the subject of Glaspie he also often describes a conversation he allegedly had with Tariq Aziz's former assistant Nizar Hamdun (now deceased) wherein Hamdun reportedly exonerated Glaspie's performance during the Gulf Crisis.
Glaspie took the fall, but it wouldn't surprise me that Wilson was involved. Glaspie did not respond strong enough to Saddam's contention that Kuwait was part of Iraq. The massing of Iraqi troops on the border was an indication of something happening. It is interesting to note that the Saudi Embassy in Kuwait closed down the day before the invasion.
Since Wilson was working under Glaspie, would it be plausible that he may have been her notetaker rather than her translator, perhaps?
I'm not surprised to hear the no-soles-of-the-feet-showing custom is not as rigidly practiced among Westernized Arabs. I still wonder what Al-Zubaydi means to convey by portraying her as eschewing that custom, though. When I read it, it comes across like he's trying to portray her as rude or contemptuous.
A note on Post 182 regarding Jacqueline's payments from Gabon: in addition to the payments you list, I found another $38,000 payment, which IIRC didn't turn up in some searches but was there if you poked around enough in the FARA website and Google caches. I will need to dig through my notes to find the date of the filing but I double-checked this a few times as I was going over Jacqueline's FARA filings before trying to resolve some discrepancies between what different people had found and forwarded me.