BREMNER, BIRD, AND FORTUNE
BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE

© VERA PRODUCTIONS

PART 1 OF 4

OPENING TITLES

RORY STANDUP

RORY:

V/O:
Many years ago, in the Biblical land of Babel there flowered the first great civilisation. At it’s heart stood the ancient city of Babylon.

Today thousands of years later, that civilisation lives on. While Babylon may have fallen, sixty miles to the north, it’s modern day successor still attracts visitors and academics from all over the world, seeking to uncover it’s secrets.

HANS BLIX:
What the world wants to have are assurances that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

CAPTION: DR HANS BLIX, UN CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR

BUSH AND CONDOLEEZA.

CAPTION: WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 2002.

CONDY:
(Answering the phone) President’s Office. No this is Condoleeza. What’s happening? He’s done what? How much? Well let me know when you’ve read them, and tell them to hurry we’re not gonna hang around here. Man!

BUSH:
What’s happening?

CONDY:
It’s the Inspection Team sir. They say the Iraqis just handed a whole lot more documents over. It’s gonna take our guys a while to get through them.

BUSH:
Like how long?

CONDY:
About 3 months sir.

BUSH:
3 months! Geez. Doesn’t this guy want a war? I’m a patient man. I’ve got Don and Dick on my tail, I tell you, they’re trigger finger is getting kind of itchy. I just want one pretext, one lousy pretext to go after the guy, and he keeps chucking paper at us.

CONDY:
Well sir, Resolution 1441 states:

BUSH:
I know what the Resolution states, Condy, God know we went through it often enough. He has to tell us what he has.

CONDY:
Well that’s what he’s doing right now sir, he’s complying.

BUSH:
Well I wish he’d do a little less complying and a little more lying. Doesn’t he realise how serious we are, we’ve got a war to fight.

CONDY:
Sir, you know that and I know that, but we have to do this the right way or we’ll lose the support of the coalition.

BUSH:
I told you, we should have gone with the original wording.

CONDY:
Sir, I’m sorry, but the phrase “98, 99, 100 coming ready or not”, does not constitute an acceptable resolution. The Syrians would never had backed it.

BUSH:
So what happened to the gentle art of persuasion? Do you remember last time when the Yemenis wouldn’t back us? What happened? We cut $70m off their aid budget. Money talks Condy.

CONDY:
Yeah but right now the only one’s doing the talking are the Iraqis. And they’re gonna be talking for quite some while yet.

BUSH:
Has Dr Blix found any hard evidence yet?

CONDY:
Not yet sir.

BUSH:
Didn’t he take any in there with him? Who’s side is he on for Christ’s sake. This is a crusade Condy, it’s us against them.

CONDY:
(Phone rings) Yes. (To Bush) It’s the palace inspection team again. He’s gone where? Do we have a man with him? Well fix it, just do it. It’s Saddam, he’s gone to the bathroom.

BUSH:
Does that constitute a material breach?

CONDY:
It depends what he has in there.

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
So a new year and our first resolution is to start a war with Iraq. Actually that’s not strictly true because we haven’t finished the last one yet. RAF and American aircraft have been bombing Iraq for over 10 years. Old habits eh! Phew. Last year Britain and alone spent £4m pounds a week on it, which must really annoy the fire fighters - unless of course their 2nd job is servicing our bombers.

The signs have been there since December. Troops on standby, reservists called up. Jim Davidson told not to take bookings for March. Because there’s all sort of speculation about the timing. People say that because of the weather, any operation in Iraq has to take place between January and March. At least I think it’s that. I overheard a couple talking about it the other day. The man was saying “whatever happens we absolutely have to be out of there by March”, and his wife said “Oh why, because of Cheltenham?”

CAPTION: WESTMINSTER 2002.

BLAIR:
Good morning. Look we believe Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Now if we don’t attack him, then he might not use them, and in that case we’ll never know whether he’s got them or not. And you know, that’s not a risk I’m prepared to take. Besides if we do conquer Iraq, and remove Saddam Hussein, there’s a chance we could win the Nobel Peace Prize, and you know, frankly, isn’t that something worth going to war for?

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
But we all wish this wasn’t the case. It would be great if the week before war begins the Queen would suddenly remember a conversation she had with Saddam Hussein 5 years ago, when he told her he was looking after all these weapons for safe keeping, and had no intention of selling them to anyone. But the fact is, the Americans had 60,000 troops in the region even before the weapons inspectors went in, and plans for invasion were well advanced even before Christmas.

THE MANDARINS

THE FOREIGN OFFICE, 2002.

MANDARIN 1:
Remind me again why we’re invading.

MANDARIN 2:
Because it is our sacred duty to liberate the population from, what did Jack Straw call it? “One of the most vicious and evil regimes in the history of mankind”.

MANDARIN 1:
Yes it’s Saddam Hussein, but didn’t he use to be our ally?

MANDARIN 2:
Well I mean there was a time when he was the bulwark of stability against the fanatics of Iran, but we’ve got to forget all about that.

MANDARIN 1:
Of course. He’s a threat to our oil supplies..

MANDARIN 2:
How many times do I have to tell you Tristram this has got nothing whatsoever to do with oil.

MANDARIN 1:
Sorry yes. So this is an historic moment then?

MANDARIN 2:
It certainly is. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Before. Before.

CUT TO

THE FOREIGN OFFICE 1917.
MANDARIN 1:
Remind me again why we’re invading.

MANDARIN 2:
Because it is our sacred duty to liberate the population from one of the most vicious and evil regimes in the history of mankind.

MANDARIN 1:
Oh you mean the Turks? But didn’t they use to be our allies?

MANDARIN 2:
Well thee was a time of course when the Turks were a bulwark of stability against the Russian Empire, but we have to forget about all that.

MANDARIN 1:
And of course they’ve just discovered oil there haven’t they?

MANDARIN 2:
This has nothing whatsoever to do with oil.

MANDARIN 1:
But it’s an enormous country.

MANDARIN 2:
Yes of course it isn’t a country at all is it, just a lot of mud and sand and mountains. But we’ll make it a country.
MANDARIN 1:
Are we going to invent a whole new country?

MANDARIN 2:
Yes, we often do that in the British Empire. Haven’t you ever done it?

MANDARIN 1:
No.

MANDARIN 2:
Well now’s your chance.

MANDARIN 1:
It’s tremendous fun. And we’ll call it. It says here Mesopotamia.

MANDARIN 2:
No no no, Mesopotamia takes too long to write. No we need something short and snappy.

MANDARIN 1:
Well anyway, after we’ve invaded, it will just be a wreck.

MANDARIN 2:
Yes. What? What did you say?

MANDARIN 1:
It will just be a wreck.

MANDARIN 2:
Ireq. I like the sound of that. Ireq.

MAP AND VOICE OVER.

V/O:
And so it was that the British put Iraq on the Middle Eastern map. This land where ancient tribes have withstood the passage of time, the boundaries between them shifting and evolving over the centuries. Slowly the mighty empire of Mesopotamia, it’s dominions defined over thousands of years, gave way to the might Ottoman Empire of the Turks, whose stewardship passed in turn to the custody of the great colonial nations. Britain, France, Russia. Each mindful of borders etched over time, careful to respect and refine the delicate patchwork of territories and historic boundaries. Aware of how unsettling constant change can be.

Mapping out the future only after the most infinite attention to detail, slowly, subtly, over the course of the century barely perceptible changes were made to accommodate the indigenous population, each serving to add new shades to a land already rich in colour.

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
And so Iraq was created. By us. The trouble was it had never been a country. Just a collection of tribes. Kurds, Marsh Arabs, Shiites, Sunnis, Turcomans, Jews, Assyrians. Mostly they detested each other, so you would think it would be a tough job for Britain to unite them.

JOHN FORTUNE:
But we did it. Less than 3 years after we took over, they all got together to throw us out. That revolt was put down by British troops but the Arab tribesmen and the Kurds kept on causing trouble. How did we deal with that? We all know how Saddam Hussein dealt with it 60 odd years later. He bombed the villages.

JOHN BIRD:
So what did we do? We bombed the villages. The RAF had a big airbase at Habbaniya, outside Baghdad, from where they sent lumbering Handley-Page biplanes to blitz them at the first sign of trouble. In fact there didn’t need to be any trouble at all before a place was bombed. Perfectly peaceful villages got the treatment if the tribesmen were thought to be to slow paying their taxes.

JOHN FORTUNE:
This was the first systematic bombing of civilians in history. Another gift to a grateful world.

RORY:
The man behind this policy was the Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill.

CHURCHILL:
I look forward to the country being in the condition of an independent native state, friendly to Great Britain, favourable to her commercial interests, and costing hardly any burden on her Exchequer.

RORY:
That last bit was certainly true as the Iraqis were made to pay for the RAF’s operations, and indeed for all the administrative costs in the country. But as for the policy itself even the Secretary of State for War had his doubts.

SIR LAMING WORTHINGTON-EVANS:
If the Arab population realised that the peaceful control of Mesopotamia ultimately depends on our intention of bombing women and children, I’m very doubtful if we shall gain that acquiescence of the fathers and husbands of Mesopotamia to which the Secretary of State for the Colonies looks forward.

RORY:
Now I know what you’re thinking. But Sir Laming Worthington-Evans was actually a real person, and a real Secretary of State for War. Though with wishy washy liberal views like that, it’s not surprising he’s vanished into history.

JOHN FORTUNE:
But the natives were still pretty uppity. Particularly the Kurds.

TONY BLAIR:
Look I’ll tell you this, you know, we have to look after the Kurds in Iraq, because if we don’t look after them over there, then they’ll come over here, and I’ll tell you, we’re not going to look after them over here.

JOHN FORTUNE:
What is it about Kurds? They were still giving trouble to Saddam in the eighties. He gassed them. Where could he have got that idea?

CAPTION: SECRET 29 MARCH 1919

JOHN BIRD
Secret. Dated 29th of March 1919. “Gas bombs are required by the 31st Wing for use against recalcitrant Arabs, the suggestion being concurred in by General Staff Baghdad.

RORY:
At the Air Ministry Lieutenant Colonel Gossage worried about the effects of gas on the innocent. But those qualms were not shared by the then Secretary of State for War and Air, the future Colonial Secretary, Prime Minister and Greatest Briton of All Time.

CHURCHILL:
“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes”.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Churchill felt that what was required was to arouse in the local population, what he called, “a lively terror”. Which is a neat phrase, bearing in mind that we’re now busily fighting a war against terror. But there were still worries at the Air Ministry.

JOHN BIRD:
“I understand that the Secretary of State has approved the general policy of using poisonous gas on uncivilised tribes. So far although considerable time and trouble was expended on research during the war, we have not yet evolved suitable and practical gas bombs for use from aircraft”.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So there we are, another good idea goes down the tube. Not because we didn’t have the heart, but because we didn’t have the technology.

RORY:
But it does mean that the next time you’re asked the question:

TARRANT:
He he, who was it who first bombed the Kurds? Was it A, the Iranians? Was it B, Saddam Hussein? Was it C, the Turks? Or was it D, Winston Churchill? You won’t need to phone a friend.

APPLAUSE

END OF PART 1

BREMNER, BIRD, AND FORTUNE’S BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE

PART 2 OF 4

OPENING TITLES

RORY:
So now we’re about to invade Iraq, again, again. But this time it’s different. It’s Saddam Hussein.

CAPTION: AL-JAVERA.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
Mr President, thank you for joining us. Now you’re currently under great pressure from the United Nations, led by the Americans.

SADDAM:
Huh, the Americans. Don’t talk to me about the Americans. I never know what they want from one minute to the next.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
But of course they say you’re the one who’s unpredictable.

SADDAM:
I’m completely predictable. I will do everything I can to stay in power and fight to make Iraq the most powerful country in the Middle East.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
But they’ve accused you of terrible crimes against your people, and violating the Geneva protocol on chemical weapons. The US senate even wanted to punish you for that in the 1980's.

SADDAM:
Yes yes, and who stopped the Senate? The White House. Mr Reagan. They gave me equipment, they supply information and intelligence from their Saudi AWACS aircraft.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
This would be during the Iran-Iraq war?

SADDAM:
Yes. There were 3 of us in that war, so it was a bit crowded, yes.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
And you say the Americans were on your side?

SADDAM:
Yes they even shot down an Iranian airliner. Ha ha, happy days. Then we find out they were arming the Iranians too, and they say they can’t trust me.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
But they say that’s because you’re a brutal dictator, that you torture and kill people.

SADDAM:
The Americans, the British, they always know this, but still they give me weapons, they give me credit.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
They actually gave you credit?

SADDAM:
How do you think I buy the weapons. They lend me money. I’m not stupid. Everyone give me weapons. French. Germans, British. One year before Gulf War, America sent me helicopter engines, communications equipment, 21 batches of lethal anthrax strains, and hundreds of tons of Sarin nerve gas, from the Americans. Before I took over Kuwait in 1990 I meet American Ambassador, I say, “You got a problem with this?” She say “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts”.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
Even Kuwait?

SADDAM:
Especially Kuwait. They said so specifically. So I invade Kuwait, and Oy! Gewalt!

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
And all of that after they knew you’d used chemical weapons against the Kurds?

SADDAM:
Just before I crushed the rebellious Kurds in Halabja, the British even send their best man.

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
Their best man?

SADDAM:
Well no actually it was David Mellor.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Yes, in 1988 David Mellor went to discuss trade with Saddam, shortly afterwards Saddam killed 5.000 of his own people in a gas attack on Halabja. Shortly after that, Britain approved an extra £340m of credit, and the Americans lent him another £1 billion dollars. We’ve been a feature of his life for years.

CUT TO

THIS IS YOUR LIFE INSIDE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE.

HOST:
Hello, this week’s guest thought he was spending a quiet night here at home in one of his many palaces with his personal food tasters, two wives, and a division of the Republican guard. But let’s see if we can surprise him. Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein, President, Commander in Chief of his army. This is your life.

SADDAM SHOOTS HOST
CUT TO STUDIO

HOST 2:
…the old heavy weight knock knock gag. Then in 1979 you call a special meeting of the Iraqi Parliament to denounce those you believe betrayed you, and you asked them to step outside.

NEWS FOOTAGE.

HOST:
Sadly none of those Ministers asked to leave that day can be with us tonight.

SADDAM:
No because I had them shot.

HOST:
And rightly so. Nor can your own son-in-law who you promised to protect on his return to Iraq, having told the world about your secret military arsenal. You shot him too?

SADDAM:
No no no, no I had someone else do that.

HOST:
Excellent. But luckily there is one person from your past who is still alive. Do you recognise this voice?

V/O - DONALD RUMSFELD:
Hi there Saddam. Sorry I can’t be with you tonight but er, ha, don’t worry we’re on our way.

HOST:
Yes, it’s your old friend US Secretary for Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Donald, Donald, you met Saddam in 1983 to discuss military and economic support for his regime, even though at the time he was launching gas attacks on Iranian soldiers.

DONALD RUMSFELD:
No sorry, but wasn’t that a different Saddam?

HOST:
No no, no I don’t think so.

DONALD RUMSFELD:
No no, that guy was a key ally, a trusted friend and a vital force in the battle against Islamic extremism.

HOST:
No this is very same Saddam.

DONALD RUMSFELD:
Well in that case it was a different Donald Rumsfeld.

HOST:
Unfortunately Donald, Donald Rumpy Pumpsfeld cannot be with us tonight. But you have many people who are supporting you across the years. For example Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and of course George Bush Senior. You thought they were thousands of miles away in the safety of America, and Europe, and you are absolutely right.

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
But let’s be clear. We’re talking about a country where there’s no opposition. As leader he can ignore Parliament and - sorry that’s Tony Blair isn’t it? Um, so he doesn’t even have to ask the country before he goes to war - sorry that’s still Tony Blair. No, the difference is Saddam rules Iraq through a combination of terror and brutality, backed up by a vicious regime of intimidation and torture - or is that David Blunkett? As absolute ruler Saddam recently claimed 100% victory in a Presidential Election.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Although that’s not surprising, given that voters were accompanied into the booths by Saddam’s Ba’ath party officials, and given a choice between voting for Saddam or voting for their wives and children to be killed, and their houses to be burnt down.

PETER SNOW:
And just a bit of fun, just a bit of fun, even small children were counted as supporters on the principal that you might as well throw in the baby with the Ba’ath voter. Ha ha!

JOHN BIRD:
So Saddam boasts a kind of total support not enjoyed by a ruler since 1921, when guess what? The British were around.

RORY:
80 years ago the British thought the best way of uniting Iraq, apart from bombing the s__t out of it, was to make it a Monarchy.

CUT TO

THE FOREIGN OFFICE 1921

MANDARIN 1:
What do you think about him? Too old?

MANDARIN 2:
A bit Jewish, but I like him.

MANDARIN 1:
Hmm, funny sort. Yes yes, good. Nice beard.

MANDARIN 2:
A good beard, a good beard is vital, and he is UK friendly, a decent family, and a descendent of the prophet apparently, always goes down well with the camel shaggers.

MANDARIN 1:
Faisal, that name rings a bell. Um, hang on, when we captured Damascus in 1918, didn’t we make him King of Syria?

MANDARIN 2:
Yes we did, we did yes, but when we carved up the Middle East with the French, they threw him out.

MANDARIN 1:
Oh so he is free?

MANDARIN 2:
Yes he’s between thrones. He’ll be ideal. Of course we shall have to hold some sort of plebiscite to make sure he’s accepted by the population.

MANDARIN 1:
Well that’s a bit risky isn’t it? I mean what if there’s another candidate? The nationalists have got this chap Sayid Taleb, what do we do about him?

MANDARIN 2:
Well we mustn’t be heavy handed.

MANDARIN 1:
No absolutely not.

MANDARIN 2:
Why don’t we kidnap him and send him off to Ceylon?

MANDARIN 1:
Yes, yes, good work, yes. What do you think the result of the plebiscite should be, Feisal gets 99% of the vote?

MANDARIN 2:
Um, a bit high.

MANDARIN 1:
95%?

MANDARIN 2:
A bit low.

MANDARIN 1:
Let’s split the difference. 96.8%.

MANDARIN 2:
Done.

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
So when Saddam held an election with no opposition candidate, he was going back to a tradition of 80 years ago, just like bombing the Kurds. This is what Tony Blair would call:

TONY BLAIR:
Traditional values in a modern context.

JOHN BIRD:
But despite us giving them a King, despite us granting them independence in 1932, by 1941 the locals had become so unreliable, there was only one thing for it. We had to invade, again.

JOHN FORTUNE:
We were getting good at this. The oil flowed, the King was on his throne. There was peace, a stable pro-Western government, everything we’d always wanted.

CUT TO

CAPTION: THE FOREIGN OFFICE 1958.

MANDARIN 1:
(Answering the phone) There’s been a popular revolution.

MANDARIN 2;
Popular with whom? Not with me certainly.

MANDARIN 1:
They’ve murdered the King, the Crown Prince, the Prime Minster, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, and they’ve burnt down the British Embassy.

MANDARIN 2:
You see Tristram it’s always the same. We give them a Royal Family, we send their Kings to Harrow, we build them hospitals, schools, and roads.

MANDARIN 1:
We bomb them and gas them.

MANDARIN 2:
Nothing’s too much trouble, and this is the thanks we get.

MANDARIN 1:
And I suppose we’ll just have to bomb them again.

MANDARIN 2:
Well that would be lovely Tristram but unfortunately we closed the RAF base two years ago.

MANDARIN 1:
Oh well, that means another invasion then. We are getting quite good at that.

MANDARIN 2:
If we know one thing at the Foreign Office, Tristram, it is how to draw lessons from history, and you can take it from me, that whatever else happens we are not going to set foot in that ghastly country again.

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
Back in 2003, the pretext for war is that in defiance of UN resolutions, Saddam Hussein has been developing weapons of mass destruction. And as George W Bush said:

BUSH:
We cannot have a situation where the world’s worst leaders are in charge of the world’s most powerful weapons.

APPLAUSE

JOHN BIRD:
Since the end of World War II the Americans have spent 19 trillion dollars on what they call “defense”. which they spell differently. And define very differently. If you were to spend $26m every day since the birth of Christ, you would have spent less than the Americans have spent on defence since the end of the Second World war.

RORY:
So that’s the most powerful weapons sorted out, now we’re just arguing about the worst leader bit.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So does Saddam have these weapons? We know he used to have enough to kill the world’s population 4 times over. We know that because we sold him quite a lot of it. The last team of UN Inspectors claimed they destroyed 95% of Saddam’s weapons.

RORY:
During those inspections Saddam used every trick in the book, including moving biological weapons material around in a fleet of red and white vans, on which he painted “Tip Top Ice Cream Company”.

JOHN BIRD:
I’ll have two “99's”, a botulism ripple and er, a smallpox wafer.

RORY:
So how much of a threat is he? Well one sure way of finding out is to attack him first and see what happens.

PAXMAN:
So er, Foreign Secretary, what’s the threat?

JACK STRAW:
Look, sorry, can I just say this is just: this is very very important, can I just say, um, I just want to make this perfectly clear, it’s very very important. Um, the greatest threat is if these weapons which we believe he has, fall into terrorist hands.

PAXMAN;
Yeees, so what um, what evidence do you have of that.

JACK STRAW:
Sorry, can I just make the point. It’s very very important. A very important point. None.

JOHN FORTUNE:
That even applies to September the 11th, 2001. That day Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked airliners and crashed them into the twin towers and the Pentagon. One year later George W Bush hijacked the anniversary to link Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, when the two have no proven connection.

RORY:
Bin laden and Saddam Hussein are like Nancy dell’Ollio and Ulrika Jonsson. They can’t stand each other, they just like f__king the same bloke.

APPLAUSE

JOHN BIRD:
So what do you do when you’ve got a Saudi born terrorist, launching attacks on Yemen, America, Indonesia and Kenya? Well that’s obvious. You invade Iraq. But why now? Well just as the world changed dramatically on September the 11th, 2001, so America changed dramatically in November 2000.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Then a small group of people with Middle Eastern connections determined to impose their brand of Fundamentalism on the rest of the population launched a dramatic assault on the White House.

CAPTION: THE WHITE HOUSE.
BUSH:
I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, so help me God.

END OF PART 2

BREMNER, BIRD, AND FORTUNE’S BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE

PART 3 OF 4

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
Tony Blair maintains that whenever they’re given a chance, people all around the world embrace the values we share in the West. Even now there are people in Iraq hoping the bombs will stop falling on their heads so they can rush out and buy shares in BP. So who are these new crusaders? Are they all like Congressman John Cooksey, looking for “anyone with a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper”. And what values do they bring? Well the values of the new America. Democracy George Bush style. No more 100% victories but a new system where there are two candidates, and the one with the most votes loses. Freedom under the rule of law from the administration that’s ignoring or refusing to sign a whole list of international treaties.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Justice from the people who gave you Guantanamo Bay? And Economic Strength from the people who brought you Enron.

V/O WITH FOOTAGE:
We all know the big guys. The guys who make things happen in life. But behind every big guy there’s someone else. Someone even more special. A really big guy. Guys who make the wheels turn in this great country of ours. Meet Thomas White, former Vice Chairman of Enron Energy Services. While he was in the job Enron rigged and exploited California’s electricity market, causing chaos, power cuts, and unemployment, in what the Senate investigator called, “A mob style protection racket”. He doesn’t work there any more. He’s now Secretary of the US Army.

Meet Larry Thompson. He headed up the audit and compliance committee of Providian. This insurance firm was forced to pay $400m in fines and compensation after swindling it’s investors, the frail and elderly, of most of their savings. Larry later faced personal claims of insider trading, after selling $4m of Providian stock just before the share price dropped. But he doesn’t work there any more. He’s now George Bush’s fraud buster, charged with restoring faith in American business ethics.

And meet Dick Cheney, head of the Republican Committee to find a Vice Presidential candidate. He found himself! He sold £30m of his shares as Chief Executive of an engineering company Halliburton, after accounting changes allegedly inflated the share price by £234m. The shares later collapsed, and Halliburton are now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s thanks to men like Tom, Dick and Larry, that the biggest of the big guys, our great leader George W Bush can stand proud and say.

BUSH:
We should be able to punish corporate leaders who are convicted of abusing their powers. By banning them from ever serving again as officers or directors of a publicly held corporation.

V/O:
George Bush, and he should know because he’s been arrested 3 times for different offences, and only got off with $800,000 oil shares trading charge when the investigator, appointed by his father said there was insufficient evidence to proceed. God bless you America, and God bless men like this who do so much to truly make our nation what it is today.

APPLAUSE

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
There’s a huge opportunity here if George Bush is serious about bringing down Saddam he shouldn’t send in the military. He should send in teams of American accountants. These guys are used to running utilities like Enron. Even the British could help with people like George Simpson. In his last year in charge of Marconi, one of our biggest defence suppliers, the company’s value crashed from nearly £35 billion to under one and a half billion pounds. That’s the kind of guy we need. He could destroy Iraq’s weapons capability in 2 years. You think I’m joking. 20 years ago what was the biggest threat to world peace? The Soviet Union. And Gorbachev woke up one morning and thought, let’s try capitalism. And they’re buggered for a generation. They’re no threat to anyone, they’re too busy setting up Macdonalds and Starbucks. And Iraq’s a whole new market. Imagine the possibilities. New outlets everywhere. Burkha King, Donna Koran. Bars selling Mullah Lite. Of course that wouldn’t exactly have them dancing in the caves of Tora-Bora.

BIN LADEN CAVE

BIN LADEN SPEAKING IN ARABIC. SUBTITLED:
Allah, we bring you praise. Our mortal enemy will at last be vanquished. No more will he will a threat. We have long dreamt of the day he will be persecuted and destroyed, just as he has persecuted and destroyed the lives of others. His weapons destroyed, his guns silent. His power no more the corruption and decadence that he has lavished on himself crushed like the sands of the desert. Allah be praised. Allah deliver us of the enemy that has poisoned the Arab lands.

BUSH AND CONDOLEEZA

BUSH:
Well will you look at that. (Referring to Bin Laden video appearance) God damn. That guy on the left. Is that Mullah Omar?

CONDY:
That’s the one Sir.

BUSH:
Is this tape genuine or is it one of ours?

CONDY:
Oh it’s genuine Sir.

BUSH:
What do you do with a guy like that. If he hates us that much, there ain’t nothing gonna stop him attacking us again, right?

CONDY:
Yes Sir. There is one difference though Sir.

BUSH:
What’s that?

CONDY:
It’s not us he was talking about.

BUSH:
So who’s he talking about?

CONDY:
He’s talking about Saddam Hussein.

BUSH:
Osama hates Saddam Hussein? How come?

CONDY:
Sir, Saddam Hussein is a secular ruler, Bin Laden wants an Islamic state run under Sharia Law. They’re enemies.

BUSH:
Do the people know this?

CONDY:
Sir people know what we tell them. And right now, if we’re talking about a war against terror, it suits us just fine if folks think that Saddam and Al Qaeda are in each other pockets.

BUSH:
It’s the best argument we got Condy.

CONDY:
It’s the only argument we’ve got.

BUSH:
So if Osama hates Saddam, hell, he should be on our side. He could do the job for us.

CONDY:
That’s what he wanted to do Sir. When Saddam invaded Kuwait, Osama wanted to get his guys in there and wipe him out.

BUSH:
Could he have done that?

CONDY:
He’d been well trained Sir.

BUSH:
Oh, ho ho, you mean by us?

CONDY:
You bet. Back in the eighties, Osama was one of the best guys we had, fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.

BUSH:
Huh, oh the Russians. Now there was a real enemy. At least you knew where they were.

CONDY:
Right.

BUSH:
Yeah, that’s what these folk have got to understand, what goes round comes round. So how come Osama didn’t take out Saddam 12 years ago?

CONDY:
The Saudis wouldn’t let him Sir.

BUSH:
The Saudis wouldn’t let him?

CONDY:
No Sir. They got someone else to do it instead.

BUSH:
Well whoever it was he obviously didn’t do a very good job. Who was this guy?

CONDY:
That would be your father, sir.

RORY STANDUP.

RORY:
To be fair on George W, it wasn’t just his father. It was the people around him. Guys like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. These are the guys pushing the war policy. They’re like Fred Truman and Ray Illingworth, grumbling into their beards.

FRED:
Errr, if you ask me, errr, I don’t know why, I don’t know why we don’t just go in there and take him out.

JOHN FORTUNE:
But when they did ask him, why didn’t he take out Saddam 12 years ago? Dick Cheney said:

JOHN BIRD:
“I think if we had done that we would have been bogged down there for a very long period of time, with the real possibility we might not have succeeded. And then you’ve got to worry about what comes after. You’re going to take a lot more casualties if you’re going to muck around in Iraq for weeks on end trying to run Saddam to the ground, and capture Baghdad and so forth, and I don’t think it would have been worth it”.

JOHN FORTUNE:
I wonder where he is now?

RORY:
People say it’s about oil. But it can’t be. It can’t be about oil. George W Bush says it’s not about oil. Dick Cheney says it’s not about oil, and these people should know.

V/O WITH FOOTAGE:
Bush, George W:
Founder of oil company Arbusto Energy. Former shareholder oil company Spectrum 7 Energy. Former director of Harken Oil and Gas. Son of oil magnate George H W Bush.

Cheney, Richard “Dick”:
Former CEO oil company Halliburton Industries. Customers included Unocal, Exxon, Shell and Chevron. Plus Saddam Hussein, Colonel Gadaffi, Ayatollah Ali Khameini.

Rice, Condoleeza:
Former director of oil company Chevron. Chevron are partners in a massive new Caspian oil venture, had a 129,000 ton oil tanker named after her.

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
It’s a great thought isn’t it that Condoleeza Rice is actually an oil tanker. That explains why she takes so long to change her mind, because she’s got to keep going in one direction for 6 miles before she can actually turn around.

APPLAUSE

END OF PART 3

BREMNER, BIRD, AND FORTUNE’S FROM IRAQ TO A HARD PLACE

PART 4 OF 4

RORY STANDUP.

RORY:
So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

George Tenet the CIA director reckons Al Qaeda exists in 60 countries. George Bush’s reaction: “Let’s pick ‘em off one at a time”.

JOHN BIRD:
Saddam’s not alone in developing illegal weapons. So do India and Pakistan, and we’re not about to attack them. Ah yes you say. But Saddam has illegal weapons of mass destruction and he’s invaded other countries. And he has a load of UN Resolutions against him, which is true too. But then so has Israel, and we’re not about to attack them, or North Korea, or Iran, or Libya, or Saudi Arabia, which is after all where Bin Laden came from, which has a appalling human rights records, and no democracy. Still you’ve got to start somewhere, so it might as well be Iraq.

RORY:
Can we win? Well of course. Given American arms superiority, although the results of a huge planning exercise were interesting. In July and August last year, in the biggest war game of all time, the $250m Millennium Challenge 2002, the combined might of the American armed forces took on what was called a militarily powerful Middle Eastern nation on the Persian Gulf, ruled by a crazy but cunning megalomaniac. I wonder who that could be?

The part of Saddam, I’m sorry the part of the enemy was played by retired Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper. Using a flotilla of civilian ships and planes and messages broadcast from the minarets of mosques, he succeeded in sinking 16 American ships and wiping out thousands of marines before the Americans decided they wanted their ball back. The Pentagon then simply ordered all the dead troops back to life, and refloated their sunken ships. The referees then told Van Riper his communications had been destroyed, ordered him to turn off his air defences whenever the Americans were about to attack, and move his forces away from areas where the Americans wanted to land. Not surprisingly Van Riper gave up and refused to play any more. But luckily for the real thing, the Americans have the might of the British army.

CUT TO STUDIO. 2 JOHNS IN CHAIRS

JOHN FORTUNE:
George Parr, you’re a senior planner at the Ministry of Defence?

JOHN BIRD:
I am yes.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Yes. And you must be very preoccupied at the moment with the possible war against Iraq.

JOHN BIRD:
We’re thrilled. We’re looking forward to it tremendously. Of course it’s what we do war. Defence it the name, attack is the game, that’s our motto.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So you must be feverishly making preparations at the moment?

JOHN BIRD:
Oh we are, because of course it’s our job to make sure that our soldiers have got the best possible equipment. And it’s fine tuned to a peak of perfection, and we’ve been working tremendously hard on that. Last year for example we had a huge military exercise. In fact the biggest deployment of British troops since the Gulf War in, in the Persian Gulf in Oman.
JOHN FORTUNE:
In Oman?

JOHN BIRD:
Yes.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Of course this was operation Swift Sword.

JOHN BIRD:
That’s right, exactly.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Wasn’t it? And did you choose Oman because the terrain and the climate were very similar to Iraq?

JOHN BIRD:
Yes, yes, in fact it’s very close to Iraq of course.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Yes it is.

JOHN BIRD:
And so it was tremendously useful.

JOHN FORTUNE:
And was the operation a success?

JOHN BIRD:
A tremendous success, yes. We learnt an enormous amount.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Such as?

JOHN BIRD:
Well we learnt never to get into one of our helicopters. Our helicopters are of course designed for operations in Northern Europe.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Of course yes.

JOHN BIRD:
And um, under those conditions, normal European conditions the rotor blades, you know, the things that go round to keep it up, they have a life expectancy of about 500 hours. Now we found in Oman, in desert conditions, this was somewhat reduced.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Reduced to what?

JOHN BIRD:
27 hours.

JOHN FORTUNE:
And did this come as a surprise?

JOHN BIRD:
It did to the pilots.

APPLAUSE
JOHN BIRD:
And um, we also had similar problems with the Challengers.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Oh the Challenger tank. This is the army’s main battle tank of course.

JOHN BIRD:
The main battle tank, yes, I mean a very very formidable weapon. Particularly when it’s able to move about.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Was it not able to move about in Oman?

JOHN BIRD:
Well I mean, one of the most interesting things that we discovered out there in Oman was that in the deserts of the Middle East, you can at times get large quantities of sand and

JOHN FORTUNE:
I believe you often do.

JOHN BIRD:
Do you? Yes. Well certainly our experience supports that theory. And um, what happens is that the sand, you see, gets into the air filters of the Challenger tanks, you see, and clogs them up. Now of course the Challenger tank is designed for operations in Northern Europe, and under those conditions an air filter would be expected to last about a year. Once again in the desert this is slightly reduced.

JOHN FORTUNE:
To what?

JOHN BIRD:
4 hours.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So you couldn’t use the tanks?

JOHN BIRD:
No no, no. Not for shooting people and moving about in them. No no. For small cocktail parties and that sort of thing. But um, apart from the prevalence of sand, the heat is another thing you get in the deserts of the Middle East. In fact some of our older vehicles, the engines got so hot the only way to keep them running was to turn on the heaters in the cabs, full on. But then the drivers got so hot, they had to get out every few minutes.

JOHN FORTUNE:
It doesn’t sound very efficient.

JOHN BIRD:
Well no, but you have to remember that these vehicles were designed for operations in Northern Europe.
JOHN FORTUNE:
In Northern Europe. Yes. But of course you had other problems with the army’s assault rifle, rather well publicised problems, with the sand and the dust getting into the mechanism and jamming the gun.

JOHN BIRD:
Yes well, of course there has been some very unfortunate negative publicity about this gun, the AS80-A2 is standard issue British rifle, it’s a lethal weapon. Particularly to anybody trying to fire it. It is, it is completely reliable provided you take elementary precautions. Every time you fire it you take it apart and oil it.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Of course in the middle of the battle there wouldn’t really be time to do that would there?

JOHN BIRD:
Oh you have to find time. You have to find time. It’s the boredom you see, soldiers don’t like, you know, the desert, it’s very very hot, and the sand, and the, you know, we found that even the uniforms are too heavy. The tents were too hot, and in Oman the soldier’s boots melted.

JOHN FORTUNE:
What did you do about that?

JOHN BIRD:
Well we didn’t do anything, we were at home, planning. But what they did, um, was that some of the soldiers could locally buy their own boots.

JOHN FORTUNE:
You’re making this up aren’t you?

JOHN BIRD:
No no. No everything I’m telling you is actually factually true you see.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Well excuse me, General, but it does seem to me that the British Army seems rather ill equipped to fight a battle in the Middle East, because your battle communications system now that didn’t work in Oman did it?

JOHN BIRD:
No, that’s very misleading to say that. Very misleading. It is true it doesn’t work in the desert, but it doesn’t work anywhere else either.

APPLAUSE
JOHN FORTUNE:
Yes precisely. I remember that in Kosovo, soldiers were reduced to relying on their own mobile phones to contact other units.

JOHN BIRD:
Yes, they were, yes. We couldn’t do that in Oman because there isn’t the coverage.

JOHN FORTUNE:
And presumably there wouldn’t be in Iraq either.

JOHN BIRD:
Oh we don’t know. We don’t know. It is possible that Saddam Hussein as well as building up his chemical and biological nuclear capability, is also developing a mobile phone network. Certainly it would be useful if one of our tank commanders could you know, get out of his tank, get on his mobile, and say, you know, my tank has seized up, the rotor blades have fallen off the helicopter, the gun has caught fire, my rifle has jammed and my boots are melting, I await further instructions. And he can send a little picture of himself doing it.

JOHN FORTUNE:
That’s true, absolutely true. So what would you say was the greatest lesson that you learnt in Oman?

JOHN BIRD:
It’s blindingly obvious really. If we are to mount a successful military campaign against Saddam Hussein, we must at all costs, we must get him to come and fight us in Northern Europe. You see, because then all our equipment would work, and er, there’d be a political dividend to you see, because the moment he invaded Poland I mean everybody would agree to attack him you see.


JOHN FORTUNE:
It’s true. But if, if for some reason he can’t be persuaded to invade Poland:

JOHN BIRD:
Yes, a worst case scenario we’re talking about.

JOHN FORTUNE:
A worst case scenario, of course. And the war actually takes place in Iraq, and it’s just ourselves and the Americans, it’s hard to see what sort of military support we’ll be able to offer the Americans.

JOHN BIRD:
Well to be quite frank, I don’t think the Americans are all that bothered about our military support, as you know, I mean they can do all that side of it themselves really.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So what is it that they want from us.

JOHN BIRD:
From us, um, dead bodies I think is what they want. You see I think if a war does occur in Iraq, it’s very important for Washington that not all the bodies in the body bags will be American.

JOHN FORTUNE:
So this is what has been called the blood sacrifice?

JOHN BIRD:
Well exactly. Tony Blair’s words, the blood sacrifice. Yes and Tony Blair himself said, what matters is that we stand up and be counted.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Or in our case, fall down.

JOHN BIRD:
Fall down and be counted, yes.

JOHN FORTUNE:
General, thank you very much indeed.

JOHN BIRD:
It’s been a great pleasure.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Thank you.

APPLAUSE

RORY STANDUP.

RORY:
And if we do get rid of Saddam, then what? Well it paves the way for the country to be governed by any one, or all, of the numerous opposition parties who hate each other only slightly less than they hate Saddam.

JOHN FORTUNE:
But there’s no one candidate. Last summer Dick Cheney auditioned opposition leaders by video link from his holiday home in Wyoming. It must have been a bit like Blind Date.

DICK CHENEY:
Hello guys, you have 11% of the world’s oil resources. How much of that are you prepared to sell to me at preferential rates? And I’ll put that one to number 1.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Of course the best solution will be to have another proper king. Or any kind of king.

CHARLES PACKING

CHARLES:
“A gift on your wedding day from the Sultan of Brunei”. Kosher too. What do you think, Grayson, you know a bit about this sort of stuff. 30 quid, Tewkesbury car boot sale? Oh no they say, get caught with a load of your booty, we’d end up in chokey. 500 years ago it would have been me slinging them in there. Look at that 3 Degrees. Oh it’s signed. By Spike Milligan. That’s got to be worth a bob or two. That was when I was somebody. Not any more. Bloody butler’s finished us all off. I’m off where I’m wanted. A King at last. Alright, so there might not be a branch of Gieves in Baghdad. No place to service the Aston, but after a lifetime of military dictatorship, I should think they’d be bloody glad if the worst they’re asked to do is to put a dob of Colgate on the old Royal toothbrush every day. Do you know, in many ways my life’s been a preparation for this moment. I can read the Koran without people sniggering, I could marry Camilla. There’d be all those wonderful palaces to choose from. I think it would be fantastic. Goodbye Highgrove. Goodbye potting shed. Goodbye mum and dad, Saddam here I come, here I come.

RORY STANDUP.

JOHN FORTUNE:
Well why not? It’s practical, it continues a pattern. It solves a problem for us too. Prince Andrew could have Jordan. He’s always fancied her. And it’s in our interests which has always been the most important consideration.

CAPTION: WESTMINSTER 2002

TONY BLAIR:
Look, I know people worry about the possibility of war, I worry about it too. But I think what people have got to understand is I’m passionate about this. Just as I’m passionate about poverty and education, and Africa, and crime, yes of course, crime. But what I say to you is simply this. If we can disarm Saddam and bring peace and security to the Middle East, if we can bring a lasting solution to the people of Israel and Palestine, in that order, let’s not forget. If we can remove from positions of power, those who threaten their people and those in other countries, if we can bring peace to the world, and decency, and justice, and an end to famine and conflict, all within our own prudently costed financial limits for the coming year, then I say to you, then and only then will I be able to turn to our public sector workers and say look, I’m sorry what was it you wanted?

APPLAUSE

RORY STANDUP

RORY:
In the end it comes down to wanting to get rid of one man. And although our weapons have got infinitely more sophisticated, it’s not clear if we have, as we seem to believe the best way of removing Saddam is by bombing as many of his countrymen as we have to until we get to him. And as the man said 80 years ago:

FOOTAGE

V/O - SIR LAMING WORTHINGTON-EVANS:
If the Arab population realised that the peaceful control of Mesopotamia ultimately depends on our intention of bombing women and children, I am very doubtful if we shall gain that acquiescence of the fathers and husbands of Mesopotamia to which the Secretary of State for the Colonies looks forward.

ENDS