This is according to a memo purporting to detail a conversation between Bush and then-Spanish Prime Minister (and Iraq war ally) Jose Maria Aznar on February 22, 2003 in which Bush alleged says that he was planning on invading Iraq even if Saddam complies with the UN.

The memo is, obviously, in Spanish but Barcepundit has a translation of the key part which indicates that the memo really doesn’t say what the Spanish newspaper El Pais is claiming.

Here is the translation:

Saddam won’t change and will keep playing games. The moment of getting rid of him has arrived. That’s it. As for me, from now on I’ll try to use the softest rhetoric I can, while we look for the resolution to be approved. If some country vetoes [the resolution] we’ll go in. Saddam is not disarming. We must catch him right now. We have shown an incredible amount of patience until now. We have two weeks. In two weeks our military will be ready. I think we’ll achieve a second resolution. In the Security Council we have three African countries [Cameroon, Angola, Guinea], the Chileans, the Mexicans. I’ll talk with all of them, also with Putin, naturally. We’ll be in Baghdad at the end of March. There’s a 15% chance that by then Saddam is dead or has flown. But these possibilities won’t exist until we have shown our resolution. The Egyptians are talking with Saddam Hussein. It seems he has hinted he’d be willing to leave if he’s allowed to take 1 billion dollars and all the information on WMDs. Ghadaffi told Berlusconi that Saddam wants to leave. Mubarak tells us that in these circumstances there are big chances that he’ll get killed.

We’d like to act with the mandate of the UN. If we act militarily, we’ll do with great precision and focalizing our targets to the biggest degree. We’ll decimate the loyal troops and the regular army will quickly know what it’s all about. ... We are developing a very strong aid package. We can win without destruction. We are working already in the post-Saddam Iraq, and I think there’s a basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a relatively strong civil society. It could be organized as a federation. Meanwhile we’re doing all we can to fulfill the political needs of our friends and allies.

The left is, predictably, going nuts over this.  “Rush to war.” “Imperial hubris.” “War for oil.” You know the drill.  But their claims have no basis in fact, as usual.

But I’m sure that won’t stop this story from being REAL BIG NEWS over at least the next couple of days.