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Leaked Presidential Address
HAIRY
Member Posts: 23,606
And the hunt goes on
(Rough draft of hastily canceled presidential address regarding the effort to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).
My fellow Americans, Lots of people at home and abroad are increasingly skeptical about the existence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq. Perhaps this is because, after three months of looking, we haven't found diddly. However, I am urging you to be more patient with our search effort than we were with the United Nations' search effort.
While it's true that there's nobody left in Saddam Hussein's regime to ''delay and deceive'' us -- as they did to those pushovers from the U.N. -- the weapons hunt is still mighty challenging. Let me remind you for about the 27th time that Iraq is as big as California, and is mostly desert. Deserts are vast arid flatlands made up predominantly of sand. Sand is loose granular matter that is produced by the disintegration of rock. Rock is a formation of stony minerals . . . well, you get the picture.
According to our most current intelligence estimates, the Iraqi desert is made up of ''jillions and kazillions'' of grains of sand. One particle of anthrax the size of a single grain could infect thousands of innocent people. Therefore, it is our intention to search Iraq one grain of sand at a time until we're absolutely sure that Saddam did not disguise any biological agent as desert cover. How long will this take? I can't answer that question. But now that we've occupied Iraq, what's the big darn hurry? Heck, we basically own the joint.
I've been disturbed by the mounting accusations in Europe and elsewhere that the United States invaded on false pretenses. This is completely untrue. Granted, in the weeks preceding ''Operation Iraqi Freedom'' I repeatedly asserted that we would go to war only to ''disarm'' Saddam Hussein's regime, not to seize the country and take over its oil fields. And, yes, we ended up seizing the country and taking over its oil fields.
So, in the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I certainly understand how some folks might be a tad suspicious. I am outraged, however, that Democrats in Congress are calling for hearings to investigate whether this administration hyped the threat of a biological, chemical or nuclear attack in order to justify military action against Iraq. OK, so maybe Saddam wasn't as tight with al Qaeda as we'd made him out to be. And maybe I did stand up in front of the whole nation and say that Saddam might produce a nuclear warhead within a year. And, yes, it turned out to be total hogwash based on a lame tip from discredited informants.
But neither Defense Secretary Rumsfeld or myself intentionally pressured the CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI or even Fox News to exaggerate the Iraqi menace for the purpose of mobilizing public opinion behind the war. I still firmly believe that our worst fears about Saddam Hussein will prove well-founded. And I'm sure that he had a perfectly good reason for not using his secret stash of poison gas and deadly germs against invading allied troops, even though he was desperate to avoid defeat. It's very possible that Saddam took a few weapons of mass destruction with him when he fled Baghdad. A lethal supply of smallpox, for example, could have fit easily in the glove compartment of his Range Rover.
As time passes, we must seriously consider the possibility that Saddam now intends to peddle these smuggled weapons to terrorist groups or countries hostile to the United States. According to recent intelligence chatter, both Syria and Iran ''really hate our guts.'' Radical elements within those regimes would snap up Saddam's weapons technology faster than you can say ``Hans Blix.''
SCRUBBED CLEAN As you're probably aware, American forces did discover two mobile bio-warfare laboratories abandoned in Iraq. We know they're bio-warfire laboratories because they resemble the pin-like shapes on those grainy satellite photos that Secretary of State Powell showed to the United Nations -- and Secretary Powell is a righteous, stand-up guy. Frankly, I was a little disappointed that no traces of actual bio-crud were found in the mobile labs, which evidently had been scrubbed clean with the Iraqi equivalent of extra-strength Comet. But you should have no doubt, my fellow Americans, as to the sinister purpose and intent of those facilities. Nor should you doubt our resolve to track down Saddam's hidden arsenal of mass destruction no matter where the trail leads us, even to Iran. Which, according to our most recent intelligence, is four times larger than California. So please don't get your hopes too high.
It's not what you know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so!
Resident Pyrrhonist
(Rough draft of hastily canceled presidential address regarding the effort to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).
My fellow Americans, Lots of people at home and abroad are increasingly skeptical about the existence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq. Perhaps this is because, after three months of looking, we haven't found diddly. However, I am urging you to be more patient with our search effort than we were with the United Nations' search effort.
While it's true that there's nobody left in Saddam Hussein's regime to ''delay and deceive'' us -- as they did to those pushovers from the U.N. -- the weapons hunt is still mighty challenging. Let me remind you for about the 27th time that Iraq is as big as California, and is mostly desert. Deserts are vast arid flatlands made up predominantly of sand. Sand is loose granular matter that is produced by the disintegration of rock. Rock is a formation of stony minerals . . . well, you get the picture.
According to our most current intelligence estimates, the Iraqi desert is made up of ''jillions and kazillions'' of grains of sand. One particle of anthrax the size of a single grain could infect thousands of innocent people. Therefore, it is our intention to search Iraq one grain of sand at a time until we're absolutely sure that Saddam did not disguise any biological agent as desert cover. How long will this take? I can't answer that question. But now that we've occupied Iraq, what's the big darn hurry? Heck, we basically own the joint.
I've been disturbed by the mounting accusations in Europe and elsewhere that the United States invaded on false pretenses. This is completely untrue. Granted, in the weeks preceding ''Operation Iraqi Freedom'' I repeatedly asserted that we would go to war only to ''disarm'' Saddam Hussein's regime, not to seize the country and take over its oil fields. And, yes, we ended up seizing the country and taking over its oil fields.
So, in the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I certainly understand how some folks might be a tad suspicious. I am outraged, however, that Democrats in Congress are calling for hearings to investigate whether this administration hyped the threat of a biological, chemical or nuclear attack in order to justify military action against Iraq. OK, so maybe Saddam wasn't as tight with al Qaeda as we'd made him out to be. And maybe I did stand up in front of the whole nation and say that Saddam might produce a nuclear warhead within a year. And, yes, it turned out to be total hogwash based on a lame tip from discredited informants.
But neither Defense Secretary Rumsfeld or myself intentionally pressured the CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI or even Fox News to exaggerate the Iraqi menace for the purpose of mobilizing public opinion behind the war. I still firmly believe that our worst fears about Saddam Hussein will prove well-founded. And I'm sure that he had a perfectly good reason for not using his secret stash of poison gas and deadly germs against invading allied troops, even though he was desperate to avoid defeat. It's very possible that Saddam took a few weapons of mass destruction with him when he fled Baghdad. A lethal supply of smallpox, for example, could have fit easily in the glove compartment of his Range Rover.
As time passes, we must seriously consider the possibility that Saddam now intends to peddle these smuggled weapons to terrorist groups or countries hostile to the United States. According to recent intelligence chatter, both Syria and Iran ''really hate our guts.'' Radical elements within those regimes would snap up Saddam's weapons technology faster than you can say ``Hans Blix.''
SCRUBBED CLEAN As you're probably aware, American forces did discover two mobile bio-warfare laboratories abandoned in Iraq. We know they're bio-warfire laboratories because they resemble the pin-like shapes on those grainy satellite photos that Secretary of State Powell showed to the United Nations -- and Secretary Powell is a righteous, stand-up guy. Frankly, I was a little disappointed that no traces of actual bio-crud were found in the mobile labs, which evidently had been scrubbed clean with the Iraqi equivalent of extra-strength Comet. But you should have no doubt, my fellow Americans, as to the sinister purpose and intent of those facilities. Nor should you doubt our resolve to track down Saddam's hidden arsenal of mass destruction no matter where the trail leads us, even to Iran. Which, according to our most recent intelligence, is four times larger than California. So please don't get your hopes too high.
It's not what you know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so!
Resident Pyrrhonist
Comments
Let's take a look at the facts, though.
1) President Bush stated that Iraq had, beyond the shadow of a doubt, WMDs and a substantial nuclear program. To date the evidence supporting those statements have amounted to zero.
2) President Bush was very keen on stating that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were bosom buddies and that Iraq practically was Al Qaeda. Evidence supporting that claim: one handwritten note found by Canadian reporters that has yet to be mentioned again.
3) President Bush said that the Iraqi people should be free to determine their own destinies and that democracy should replace despotism. He conveniently left out the footnote, "Unless they decide to vote for Islamic leaders, in which case all bets are off." Despite public statements to the contrary, U.S.-backed voting has been delayed until such a time that we can rig it to where our guy wins. I hear they're shipping in Florida election officials as we speak...
4) It's not about the oil. We're just spending approximately twenty times more on their oil fields than on basic human services to Iraqis because everyone knows that you can eat and drink oil.