Hussein’s Last Dream
posted at 11:01 am
on Mar. 25, 2003
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A Trip to the Snow
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Trying to Get Unserious
SCENE ONE: Exterior. Daylight. The desert.
Saddam Hussein wanders, dirt-smeared in ragged clothing, over the crest of a dune. In the foreground, we see a dusty glass lamp sticking out of the sand.
He approaches, picks it up, rubs it. Smoke bellows forth.
CUT TO:
SCENE TWO: Interior. Fluorescent lights. The floor of the U.N. General Assembly
Hussein stands at the podium, addressing the members.
HUSSEIN
...In conclusion, the United States is a menace to the rest of the civilized world, and must be disarmed before they begin another war of aggression.
DELEGATE FROM COUNTRY 1
But Saddam, surely you’re not saying that the United States, whose defense budget for 2001 was only $296 billion, is a threat to you?
HUSSEIN
Perhaps not today. But our budget in Iraq was only $1 billion in 2001. It was only after I found the magic lamp, that our budget increased 90,000 fold, making us the world power we are today, with exactly the same financial advantage over the U.S. that they had over us when they first attacked.
I must reiterate to the assembly: The United States, despite this reversal of fortune, are a threat now to all of us, not in the unspecified future, and not just to Iraq.
Let us first deal with weapons of mass destruction. What country is the only one to have used nuclear weapons in warfare? What country is responsible for spreading the technology and materials for biological and chemical weapons to rogue states—including, I might add, us when we were much smaller and less civilized?
What country breached the Geneva convention, using napalm and Agent Orange in southeast Asia, killing women and children in inhumane attacks?
What country conducted experiments on its poorest minorities, denying them treatment for syphilis in the name of scientific progress?
What country has the largest stockpile of biological, chemical, and nuclear weaponry? And what same country seems to have so little control of these stockpiles, that samples of its own anthrax cultures have been used, perhaps by someone inside the country, against itself?
What country has invaded other sovereign nations, capturing their leaders and taking that leader into the U.S. to make them stand trial in American courts?
What country’s head of the government recently introduced special funding for community work done specifically by religious organizations? And whose head of police starts each day with a Bible study session and has covered up the statues of the Justice building with blue drapes because they exposed a naked bosom or two?
What country has been linked, indeed even admits, to funding terrorists in nations around the world, supporting revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries in their efforts to overthrow their own governments by force?
What developed country has the highest rate of child malnutrition, illiteracy, gun deaths, percent of population incarcerated and state-sanctioned death penalty killings?
What country has lied to the United Nations, spying on members of the security council, producing false documents and unsubstantiated statements about Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda?
The answer, of course, is the United States of America.
For too long, the world community has tried protests and sanctions and economic solutions to the American problem. The time has come for military action. The United States must be disarmed, and if this organization does not have the will to do so, then Iraq must act alone.
THE SOUND OF CHEERING AND JEERING RISE UP FROM THE ASSEMBLY.
FADE TO:
SCENE THREE: Exterior. Daylight. The desert.
Hussein, dead, face against the sand, wind slowly covering him with little piles of grit. There’s a smile on his face, as he clutches a glass container that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a worn Coke bottle.
