The [London] Guardian  November 11 1997
 
Saddam loses out on mother of all whoppers
 
Mark Steel
 
TO BE fair to Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine, they do try
their best to come out with crazy statements but they just
can't match the Americans' superior firepower.  According to
the US Office of Technology Saddam is hiding a bomb in a
suitcase which, once released, will create an invisible mist
and kill three million people.
 
They must have copied this out of a comic.  Next they'll say
that Saddam is planning to intercept all Western television
programmes with an announcement: "Greetings my infidel
friends.  I won't keep you long.  Just long enough to inform
you that your government must hand me the keys to Fort Knox by
six o'clock tonight otherwise I will open this suitcase and
cover your continent with my little creation; invisible
poisonous mist.  Ha ha ha.  Aha ha ha.  I do hope none of you
'missed' my message.  HA HA HA!"
 
Then they'll say he's hoping to capture the pilots of the
surveillance planes, take them to an underground headquarters,
and shout "You poor deluded fools!  Did you honestly think you
could stop my evil plan?  Ha ha ha!" before placing them in a
cunning machine in which they'll be slowly suffocated with the
mother of all custard.
 
Clinton's secretary of state Madeline Albright has also been
playing her part in the tough stance against Saddam,
repeatedly referring to him as a "congenital liar".  Unlike
her boss, of course.  At least Saddam never said anything as
daft as: "Well I did use chemical weapons but I didn't
inhale".
 
This is all reminiscent of the Gulf war.  When a smart bomb
smartly landed on a bomb shelter killing 500 civilians, we
were told that Saddam had deliberately misled the Americans
that the shelter was a military base.  On the day before the
land war started it was discovered that the Iraqis were going
around hospitals murdering babies.  There was the oil slick
which developed after the American navy torpedoed a tanker but
was blamed on Iraqi vandalism.  As if American oil tankers are
environmentally sensible enough to never carry oil.
 
Then there were the amazingly accurate missiles which could
turn comers, stop at the lights and nip up back roads if there
were road works on the High Street.  Except it's now admitted
that all these stories were fabrications, and only a quarter
of the missiles hit their target.
 
One of the tragedies of that war was the number of erstwhile
pacifists who fell for the propaganda.  Opposing a war is
quite simple if the war is in history.  It's easy now to say
that the first world war was a dreadful waste of life, but
there were no posters at the time saying "Your country needs
you - to protect our Empire by sloshing about in a rat-filled
trench to gain a yard of mud before getting a bayonet in your
arse.  Sign up at the desk in the church hall." Instead
everyone was informed that "brave little Belgium" had to be
protected from the evil Hun, who were murdering babies and
were on the point of inventing a poisonous invisible mist.
 
Now supporters of military action against Saddam, tell us he's
a monster, which he is, but this has nothing to do with the
current crisis.  He must feel like someone who's never
understood why their marriage went horribly wrong.
Occasionally he must flick through old photos showing him
walking arm in arm with Reagan against Iran, or those
wonderfully well thought out presents that came from British
arms manufacturers, and think: "Where did it all go wrong?"
Perhaps he even -considers ringing George Bush and saying:
"Why don't we play that game where I attack the Kurds and you
support it?  One last time, for old time's sake".
 
SADDAM has broken UN resolutions, but so has Indonesia; yet
despite their ethical foreign policy, New Labour are happy to
sell them more weapons, to "fulfil an outstanding contract".
Perhaps that's what they meant by ethical.  "Well, not to send
the instruments of torture after a government's gone to the
trouble of filling in the form and paying a deposit would be
very rude indeed."
 
The finest country at ignoring UN resolutions, though, is
Israel.  They can also put Saddam in the shade when it comes
to dealing with people exposing their secret weapons.  When
Mordechai Vanunu leaked that the army was secretly developing
nuclear bombs, his government didn't muck about threatening to
fire at aircraft they couldn't reach.  Instead he was
kidnapped and placed in solitary confinement, where he's been
for the last 10 years.
 
So there's every reason to doubt the claims of the US Office
of Technology, and believe the simpler explanation that it all
comes down to oil.
 
Or maybe, right now, Saddam is applying the finishing touches
to his secret potion, which will enable him to change into
whatever shape he chooses.  Bill Clinton will stop him in the
nick of time, punch him on the jaw, there'll be a huge
"Kerpow!" sound, and finally Tony Blair will arrive and say
"And I'm pretty tough as well, you know".