From Reuters:
“Condoleezza Rice defended Bush’s decision to go to war and said the United States may never learn the whole truth about Iraq’s weapons capabilities because of looting after the conflict.”
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[Scene: A moonlit desert night on the outskirts of Karbala, March 24, 2003. Two bedraggled soldiers, Hashim and Ahmad, late of Saddam’s Republican Guard, sift through the rubble of houses, barracks, and storage facilities.]
AHMAD: Even Papa Saddam himself wouldn’t blame us.
HASHIM: Uh huh.
AHMAD: I mean, it wasn’t as if there was even much of a “post” left to defend, anyway. Not after that bombing run. The Americans will be here any day now - we have to get back to our families. Even Papa Saddam would see that.
HASHIM: Right.
[They rummage through a burnt-out structure in silence for a moment.]
AHMAD: “Warthog.”
HASHIM: What?
AHMAD: That’s what they call those big ones that fly in really low with the bombs and the rockets and whatnot. “Warthogs.” Imagine.
HASHIM: Uh huh.
AHMAD: Personally, I think they look more like mosquitos or something, but then, most aircraft look like insects. Or birds, of course. But you can’t name every single airplane after a bir- what?
HASHIM: Look here!
AHMAD: Where - oh! Stuff.
[They scoot down some rubble into a large, exposed basement that is filled with crates and bags.]
AHMAD: Look at this, Hashim! Food, batteries, bottled water, everything we’ll need to get our families through the war! I’ll get the truck…
HASHIM: We’re not taking the food or batteries.
AHMAD: What? Hashim, what else would we possibly want?
HASHIM: That.
AHMAD: That? Hashim, call me crazy, but that appears to be roughly 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.
HASHIM: Exactly, Ahmad. Weapons-grade. And right next to it?
AHMAD: Aw, just about 25,000 liters of anthrax. So what?
HASHIM: So what? We can grab these and hide ‘em! Maybe take ‘em to Syria while nobody’s looking! They will become the instrument by which we will bring down the Americans!
AHMAD: Geez, I really wish we’d thought of using these before they took out my village. Damn Warthogs. Hey, maybe it’s War-thogs, you know, as in “thogs of war.”
HASHIM: What’s a “thog?”
AHMAD: Dunno.
HASHIM: Look, help me with these 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
AHMAD: Hashim, are you seriously suggesting that a couple of random mid-level officers like you and I are simply going to pick up gigantic stockpiles of highly volatile chemical and biological agents that we have little or no training in the use of, transport them through a dangerous war zone wherein almost all travel is closely monitored and American patrols sweep by daily, and somehow get them all the way to some unknown Syrian destination or hide them so cleverly all by ourselves (at a moment’s notice, no less) that the Americans won’t be able to find them, and do all this instead of merely fleeing back to our families with what provisions we can loot and ensuring our own survival?
HASHIM: Yes, Ahmad, that is what I’m suggesting.
[Pause]
AHMAD [shrugging]: Huh. Seems logical. Hey, dibs on the botulinum toxin!
HASHIM: I saw it first!
AHMAD: I’ll race ya!
[Laughing and playfully wrestling, they run off into the stockpiles.]
Fanny Roborat
11 comments
Matt
January 29, 2004 at 4:48 pm
1So that’s how it happened. I knew there had to be some logical explanation as to why we couldn’t find a pile of anthrax big enough to fill a stadium. I had just sorta figured that the poor stupid iraqis thought it was sugar and put it in their coffee…
tess
January 29, 2004 at 5:08 pm
2mmm, anthrax-y. maybe they were going to use the botulinum toxin as cheap-o surrogate botox treatments! yeah, that’s why it all disappeared! because it was all used to get rid of those awful frown lines everyone’s developed in the past 10 years what with the sanctions and the war and all.
Don
January 29, 2004 at 5:29 pm
3And to think that — thanks to those two — the real truth will NEVER be known!
Those Iraqis sure are clever guys.
Dee
January 29, 2004 at 6:07 pm
4What time did you say Godot was due?
Mr_Grant
January 29, 2004 at 7:29 pm
5I see Bill Murray as Hashim, and Dan Ayckroyd as Ahmad. I’ll have my people call your people, and we’ll see if we can make this thing happen. Ciao.
Bob
January 30, 2004 at 12:04 am
6And Jerry Mathers as The Warthog.
Katie
January 30, 2004 at 1:50 am
7Bob,
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will
January 30, 2004 at 10:51 am
8Well, we all knew the Bush administration couldn’t be WRONG, you know? After all, they are Republicans….
Anonymous
January 31, 2004 at 2:59 pm
9I think that Condi was trying to say that the records, which let us know what was where, are missing. This sort of reminds me of the kid accused of killing his parents who pleads for leniency because he is now an orphan.
Or perhaps Sadam did with the Sarin, anthrax, etc that we should do with nuclear waste.
Put it in cigarettes.
What? People will quit smoking because now it’s dangerous? Come on.
What this does is concentrate the waste, seal it in an air tight metal container with in a water tight concrete vault, covered with 6′ of dirt. None of which is at government expense. Problem solved!
That damned Sadam is just too smart!
Murray
January 31, 2004 at 3:01 pm
10Oops, forgot my name.
Sara J
January 31, 2004 at 5:45 pm
11LOL Murray!
and the reason you can’t just bury your loved ones in the back yard anymore is because we’re all such toxic waste dumps already, it would create millions of mini-Superfund sites. no new regulations, no new harm even–what’s the threat of cancer to a smoker? heck, they’d be really glad because with massive government subsidies to the production of cigarettes they might even get *paid* to smoke!
this may also be the answer to the Social Security funding problem, but that’s another topic…