The Bush/McCain Tower of Babel Posted by Adam Blickstein

This should put "mistranslation" finally to rest, per Ben Smith via TNR:

"We have a policy at Der Spiegel when we do a question and answer session to provide a transcript to our counterparts in case they want to have a minor thing changed,” says Müller von Blumencron, who says Zand verified that Maliki’s aides received the publication-ready advance copy. They had no response, and presumably no complaints, before its release.

I think if anything is being lost in the translation, it's the unwillingness of McCain and the Bush administration to admit that the Iraqi government, the very politicians they wanted to empower in the first place, are calling for U.S. troops to start leaving Iraq in the near future.  Or in other words, the McCain/Bush crowd is re-translating pretty clear statements of intent on the part of the Iraqi's into language that suits their own political goals rather than accepting what seem to be repetitive and unambiguous assertions favoring withdrawal.This should be easily understandable, regardless of the tongue being spoken.