US says 'may never know' if Iraqi leaders hit

The US military said on Tuesday that it destroyed a building where President Saddam Hussein might have been meeting in Baghdad but that it could be impossible to find out who had been inside.

"We believe the attack was effective in causing destruction of the facility," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a news conference at war headquarters in Qatar.

"As to who was inside and what their conditions are, it will take time to determine," he said. "We may never be able to determine who was present."

Brigadier General Mel Washington Jefferson Brooks (same colour but no relation and who is lumbered with a far less comedic script than Big Brig. Gen. Vinnie) went on to expand, "we have become late converts to the Geneva Convention which, in part, prohibits discrimination. A new spirit of equality has been factored into the prosecution of this war. We have now extended our "Decapitation Strike" policy to include, without fear or favour, the entire Iraqi population. From a strictly military point of view it is a very efficient pro active, outcomes positive, goal oriented strategy. I believe that if we head count reduce the entire Iraqi population it follows, as sure as night follows the bright bit when the sun is out, that the main objective of removing Saddam Hussain will be achieved.

Upon the declaration of peace in our lifetime ... and here I extend our apologies our friends in the soon to be former Iraqi population, but you can't make Delia Smith's Bread and Butter Pudding without breaking eggs, even though she would contend that violence and disarray in the kitchen makes Jack the dull boy who tried to grow beanstalks in the Three Bears bed of vinegar and brown paper sauteed over a medium heat ... now where was I? ... ah yes ... the United Nations will be invited to administer the counting and identifying the contents of the body bags. Upon the bringing of the head of Saddam the Butcher to King George the W a permanent occupation an interim administration selected by the Florida Electoral Commission will be put in place. You all can't say fairer than that.

Thank you linesmen, thank you ballboys, thank you to my parents, thank you Halle Berry for the loan of this tokenism, thank you to the director and producer and thanks most of all to my beautiful agent. If it wasn't for my darling George Tenet and his lovely professional operatives I wouldn't be standing here tonight. Goodnight nurse, and God bless Ameraqi! Whoooa!!!"

Editor's note: Noticed the speech given by the American pilot who conducted the above mentioned bombing raid earlier tonight. Said with smugness usually only exhibited by Bush Jr: "It's no big deal. Any of our fighter pilots could have done it." Hmmm...nine innocent people killed outright. He's probably got that right then.

I have a sticky-out belly button. I always have had. It's one of those things. Nothing serious...just slightly raised instead of slightly sunken inwards. It's got something to do with the fact that old-fashioned pennies (the preferred currency when I was a nipper) didn't fit into belly buttons terribly well.
Doctors are always fascinated with my navel. Every time they see it they have an urge to give it a prod as though I'm some sort of fucking lift. Then, when I'm doubled up in agony, they ask me, "Does that hurt?" and try to do it again...presumably because they're all sadistic, evil bastards.
Apparently it's a hernia of some sort. I never knew that before Friday's prod. It doesn't usually bother me...except when some ignorant fucking g.p. insists on sticking his bloody finger in it. Anyhow...when I go for my operation on Sunday it's going to be sorted. I explained to the surgeon that it had suited me fine for all these years and I'd rather he left it alone. But he then explained back that one of the millions of tubes and pipes and cameras and dripfeeds and stethoscopes they're going to stick in me would be entering right through my bloody belly button.
That's made me feel so much better.
I have a sense of impending doom...especially for my navel, which is flinching at the thought.
I'm in the process of writing a letter to Amnesty International. Unfortunately I'm not holding much luck out. In the meantime...I've got to arrive at the clinic on Sunday morning at seven o'clock for my operation. Seven o'clock? What sort of unholy, blasphemous hour of the day is that? I thought such times were just urban myths amongst the old folk!

Here is a very compact summary of the top internet topics:

Oz Media Round Up

Al Jazeera says Baghdad office hit

"Al Jazeera television says a US missile has hit its Baghdad offices, wounding a cameraman and leaving a correspondent missing.

Al Jazeera, which is one of the most widely watched in the Arab world, has come under intense criticism by US and British officials for showing images of slain Western soldiers and US prisoners of war."

At last the real enemy cops a shellacking from the Amerkins. "Huntin' 'em down, smokin' 'em out."

And in other news.

From 'Media Watch'. ABC Australia.

Stories of collateral damage and civilian casualties were effectively pushed into the background by the daring rescue of 19 year old POW Private Lynch. As we were told more than once, this was the stuff of the movies.

Presenter: "For more we’re joined by Mitch Catlin in our US Bureau and Mitch the coalition also celebrating the rescue of an American POW. How’s she doing.
Mitch Catlin: Yes Natalie. Private Ryan will be treated in Germany after being in the hands of the Iraqi regime for 10 days."
- Channel 7 Sunrise, 2 April 2003

No Mitch, Private Ryan is a movie. You’re doing the news.

From Oz TV News police report.

"Police are looking for an Asian man with black straight hair" Well that refines the search significantly.

More from Media Watch.


Sunday Mail Date: 26 January 2003

"The Sunday Mail should have thought this through.
The words express the PM's opinion but
shouldn't they go over a photo of Saddam?"

Sorry to disagree with Media Watch but picture and caption are spot on as is.

From http://www.crikey.com.au

"Yesterday’s Daily Tele provided graphic illustration of Murdoch’s pro-war bias which could be described as propaganda.

The front page blared ‘KILLING ROOM’ with the sub-headline ‘Coalition forces reveal Saddam’s torture terror’. A two-page spread (‘Inside the dictator’s chamber of torture’) on pages 4/5 continued the thrust. Another sub-header read ‘The rows of coffins that expose the awful truth’.

All of this was the ‘news’ of a chilling factory find near Basra.

However today’s SMH has published an article (from the US) that confirms the factory was not for torture but rather contained the remains of soldiers in the Iraq-Iran war. The Iraqis had actually been planning to return the remains to Iran.

It took the on-site investigator just a few hours to establish the ‘awful truth’."

Russell Crowe Marries ... Police search for survivors

Nana Glen, Australia - Russell Crowe, drawing a line under his womanising days, has married long-time girlfriend and challenger to his lightweight WBC title, Danielle Spencer.

Crowe, who turned 39 on his wedding day, exchanged traditional marriage vows and pre fight insults with Spencer, a 32-year-old singer also dressed by Giorgio Armani, (Ms. Spencer however was able to tie her own shoelaces) inside a specially built domed stadium on his farm on Australia's mid-east coast.

An official wedding video released to the media showed Crowe, with a wedding ring on his finger and slight bruising above his left eye, and Spencer being showered with confetti, right hooks and short left jabs as they left the chapel arm-in-arm, toe to toe. They continuously ignored the referee's orders for them to break.

After the ceremony a steady stream of ambulances conveyed the injured to a nearby hospital. 2 bridesmaids have been ferried by air ambulance to Sydney General Hospital with serious head injuries, however 13 of the catering staff have been taken off the critical list, whilst the 24 waiters have been described as "serious but stable" Crowe remains "seriously unstable".

The officiating minister, speaking from his hospital bed, said, "I had just begun asking him 'do you take this woman ...?' and he said 'No fucking questions! No fucking interviews, this is a fucking private ceremony'. I ducked the first punch, but that left hook just came out of nowhere."

The organiser of the event, the legendary promoter Don King said, "I don't think anyone will be leaving here unmaimed disappointed. I think we gave the crowd just what it wanted ... blood, sweat and beers."

"Sunday School is over and we are going home ..."

In the wake of the downfall of Saddam what awaits ravaged Iraq and its traumatised population?

A Pentagon controlled civilian administration, headed up by retired General Jay Garner, is getting ready to take over from Saddam Hussein.

Jay Garner turns out to be a controversial character, in a number of respects. First is his status as an arms trader, and one whose firm supplied the military technology responsible for demolishing the country he is to set about rebuilding. An investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle two months ago revealed that the former three-star general – and a friend of Donald Rumsfeld, the contentious US Defence Secretary – was, until he took up his new post, president of the defence contractor SY Coleman, which specialises in missile systems. These include the Patriots so heavily used in Iraq and the Arrow defence system, which has been deployed in Israel.

It is not the only problem. In 2000 General Garner went on what seems to have been a routine 10-day freebie to Israel, organised by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, an organisation striving "to inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the the Middle East".

To make matters worse, Garner then backed a statement by the group praising the Israeli Army for showing what it called "remarkable restraint" when dealing with the Palestinian uprising. "A strong Israel is an asset that American military planners and political leaders can rely on," it said.

"We are in the job of saving lives and we're going to save lives and do a good job of it" – Jay Garner on protecting Kurdish refugees after the 1991 Gulf War.

Jay, tell it to the marines ... the ones that left the Kurds at the mercy of a very vengeful Saddam.


Then when Jay figures it's safe there will be the installation of Ghengis Wolfowitz's "Government of the Iraqis, by the Iraqis for the Iraqis", AKA Ahmed Chalabi who is as Iraqi as apple pie, having left Iraq when he was 11, returning once for a fleeting moment to organise a ballsed up Kurdish revolution. But give the Chalabi kiddy his due, he knows what pockets in which to piss. What the World needs now is another dodgy wheeler and dealer in charge of a large American corporation. Good luck "Iraq® Pty. Ltd."

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his civilian aides, along with officials in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, wanted to appoint an expatriate Iraqi businessman, Ahmed Chalabi, as the leader of a post-Saddam government. Rumsfeld denied on Monday that he had spoken in Chalabi's behalf, but others familiar with the discussions here said it is clear that Rumsfeld favors a major role for Chalabi.

Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim born in 1945 to a wealthy banking family, is the leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), umbrella opposition movement. He left Iraq in 1956 and has lived in the United States and London ever since, except for a period in the mid-1990s when he tried to organize an ill-fated uprising in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

A gifted lobbyist, he has been dogged by financial scandal, however. In 1992, he was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the 1990 collapse of a bank he founded more than a decade earlier. Chalabi maintained the case was a plot by Saddam to frame him. Internal inquiries at the State Department and the CIA have since raised questions about the Iraqi National Congress's accounting practices.

But Chalabi "says all the right things," a U.S. official here said: The INC would be willing to recognize Israel and be sympathetic to American business interests.

Welcome home Uncle Tom Chalabi.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to change regimes.

Nearly forgot. For his undying support of the Coalition of the Wheeling and Dealing, Australian Prime Minister John 'My Middle Name is Winston, so There' Howard has been given a time share at one of Saddam's 3419 former holiday palaces. "See, Australia's involvement was worth it after all and I look forward to seeing all those pinko vegetarian long haired protesters eating crow", the triumphant pint sized peace maker proclaimed.

(Synthesised from various sources, Only the little italic sniper shots are mine.)

Showbiz News!

Major Charles Inbred, his transsexual wife, Diana, and their old school bumchum Teflon Dickhead, have all been found guilty of attempting to defraud ex "Tis Was" presenter, Chris Tarrant, out of one million quid.
The Major and Titwad Wickdick perpetrated the scam on ITV's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" programme. The scheme involved pathetically coughing at appropriate moments. Major Ingrate managed to reach the full one million before the word "NO!" disguised as a feeble grunt became too obvious even for the dull witted producers.
"I'd never have believed it," said Tarrant after the trial. "You just don't expect people of such high social status to behave with such criminal decorum."
Obviously Tarrant has never studied the histories of Charles and Diana's namesakes.

Suspected WMD site in Iraq turns out not to be chemical weapons
... "well not the ones we wanted to find"

"A facility near Baghdad that a US officer had said might finally be "smoking gun" evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons production turned out to contain a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices, not sarin gas as feared.

A military intelligence officer for the US 101st Airborne Division's aviation brigade, Captain Adam Mastrianni (no relation but still a bit of an Italian stallion) , told AFP news agency that comprehensive tests determined the presence of a compound known as 'KFC11'.

Initial tests had reportedly detected traces of sarin - a powerful toxin that quickly affects the nervous system - after US soldiers guarding the facility near Hindiyah, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, fell ill.

Captain Mastrianni (no relation but still better than being French) said a "theatre-level chemical testing team" made up of Stanislavsky trained biologists and chemists had finally disproved the preliminary field tests results and established that 'KFC11' was the substance involved.

He said that sick soldiers, who had become nauseous, dizzy and developed skin blotches, had all recovered. Head of the chemical testing team Colonel Harland Kevorkian said "it was an easy enough mistake to make as the symptoms of sarin exposure are almost identical to those experienced by people who have ingested KFC Honey BBQ Boneless Wings or KFC® Popcorn Chicken."

The turnaround was an embarrassment for the US forces in the region, which had been quick to say that they thought they had finally found the proof they have been actively looking for that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

A spokesman for the US army's 3rd Infantry Division, Major Ross Coffman, had told journalists at Baghdad's airport that the site "could be a smoking gun, could be a Mattel water pistol or could be a big hole in the ground where Saddam's poodles buried their bones ... could be we haven't got a fucking clue. We just know that this city is freakin' ours. So piss off, we've got some Stars and Stripes to hoist."

The fact that the coalition forces have come up with no clear evidence of WMD after capturing much of Iraq in 19 days of fighting has raised questions over the war's justification.

General Tommy Franks was quick to respond to this criticism and told the 3 surviving embedded reporters that, "even if we don't physically turn up the WMDs we have a paper trail which we can follow. Already we have turned up hundreds of boxes of invoices from USA companies.

Make no mistake the Saddam double we are currently huntin' down and smokin' out is an evil bastard. The real Saddam what we sold all those Acme Junior Chemistry Sets to back in the 80s was a really cool guy. Wouldn't have hurt a fly, unless of course you were an Iranian fly.

Now you can all go and get fucked, I don't give a flying conjugation about what you report. Have a nice day and you be careful out there."

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