It’s late and I’m a sack full of sleepy, so let’s zip through this with some fancy word that means ‘fast’ which I can’t think of at the moment.

Our Pal Michelle’s ‘Army of Translators‘ assembles at Pajamas Media, and actually it’s only two people so far. Ding-dong. Who’s there? Yay! It’s Laura Mansfield, the fabled Cousin-It-person of the WingNet. Picture of her — let’s see…

Official photo of Laura Mansfield

And if she keeps using that photo, someday someone is definitely going to Photoshop… Oh, what the hell.

Laura Mansfield is a Mad Arabist, meaning she speaks and reads Arabic and seems bonkier than a very bonky sort of thing, of which I can’t think of any at the present time — although ‘croquet mallet’ would have done the trick if the word ‘mallet’ wasn’t used up on John Spencer just before. Where were…? Oh yeah — document and translation.

SECRET AND PERSONAL
Number: 1/22/11836
Date: 12/1/2001
To: Iraqi Intelligence Service
Re: Rumor

Greetings.

1. In the report on the status of rumors for November of 2001 regarding Fedayeen Saddam in al-Anbar, there is an entry that indicates that there is a group of Iraqi and Saudi Arabians numbering around 3,000 who have gone in an unofficial capacity to Afghanistan and have joined the mujahidin to fight with and aid them in defeating the American Zionist Imperialist attack.

2. After presenting the matter to the Supervisor of Fedayeen Saddam, he ordered that the matter should be looked into for verification of the truth of the rumor.

Please review and inform us.

So there are these rumors floating around that a bunch of people have gone on their own to fight in Afghanistan. …Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat.

[…]The newly declassified documents shed more and more light on the evolution of the violent insurgency in Iraq, and show that Saddam Hussein’s government was aware not just of the presence of Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, but also was aware that the Anbar province in Iraq was being used as a launch point for organized groups of jihadis headed to fight the United States in Afghanistan.
[…]
The sheer volume of “mujahideen� that reportedly departed from the Anbar province, combined with the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq, indicates the presence of an organized Al Qaeda infrastructure within Iraq just a few months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Now how do they do that?