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Bearing in mind that the president
of the most powerful republic on the planet is, in principle, responsible
for his actions and knows what he's talking about, despite his eyes
- have you noticed his eyes? Well, take a good look at them! - I,
a Brazilian writer, earning my living from my daily struggle with
words, and having no close ties with the secret service, the inspection
procedure, with confidential files or privileged information, but
capable of reading the newspapers with a reasonable degree of intelligence,
have come up with the definitive answer to how to locate the weapons
of mass destruction being hidden by Iraq. I will, by the way, require
payment for this information.
How to locate the weapons:
1] All the weapons inspectors currently
in Iraq should pack their bags, settle their hotel bills and head
for Baghdad airport.
2] There, they should all buy business
class tickets to Washington. I stress business class so that they
have time to rest, since the journey will involve a number of stopovers.
3] On reaching Washington, they
should catch the first bus to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence
Agency, also known as the CIA. The address can be found in the telephone
directory for Virginia.
4] On reaching CIA headquarters,
and armed with the appropriate United Nations (UN) inspection mandate,
they should demand to see all the photographs, information and documents
currently being supplied to Mr George W. Bush. These are the documents
pinpointing the precise location of each arms cache and which allow
Mr Bush to assure us that Iraq has an arsenal capable of destroying
the planet.
5] Once in possession of these documents,
they should return to Iraq (again they should fly business class
in order to arrive feeling rested) and go immediately to the places
indicated in the photographs. Unable to deny the evidence, Saddam
Hussein will have no option but to destroy his arsenal, for fear
that the whole world will turn against him.
6] If the CIA do not have said documents,
the inspectors should go straight to Mr George W. Bush's bedroom
in the White House, Washington DC. On the way, they should avoid
all contact with the thousands of American demonstrators who took
part in the huge march on 15 February 2003 in protest against the
war in Iraq.
7] If Mr George W. Bush fails to cooperate
with the UN inspectors, they should look for the evidence under
his bed. If they do not find it there, they should go and see said
citizen's psychoanalyst, having first armed themselves with a mandate
from the Security Council and the following question: 'Does a son
necessarily have to complete his father's work?' If the answer is
affirmative, please advise me at once; my father was a civil engineer
and, when he retired, he may well have left unfinished projects
for his heir to deal with. If the answer is negative, demand that
the psychoanalyst - on behalf of the UN, the United States and the
whole world - prescribe the necessary medication to his patient
so that he no longer constitutes a threat to his country and to
his planet.
Method of payment:
Once this, in my view, infallible
line of action has been followed, I ask that the billions of dollars
that would have been spent on the war be divided up in the following
manner:
- 50% to help the poor in Brazil,
since the President of Brazil is currently grappling with a huge
budget deficit, and because the author of this practical guide to
weapons of mass destruction is himself Brazilian;
- 40% to Africa;
- 9% to Europe, who wavered but did
not fall - at least not up until now, the day on which I am writing
this article;
- 1% to pay for a nice biography
of Tony Blair, to be translated into forty languages, hard cover,
colour photographs, saying what a great leader he is, how intelligent,
important, charismatic, handsome and charming. That should be enough
to keep him quiet, safe in the knowledge that his remarkable qualities
have been recognised.
Finally:
It is important to add the following.
When speaking about the war, please do not generalise, saying that
'the Americans want to attack Iraq'. We have made the same mistake
before, saying that 'the Serbs are all butchers', 'the Brazilians
are all lazy', or 'the Iranians are all fundamentalists'. The people
who want to attack Iraq are the politicians surrounding Mr George
W. Bush, the Enron orphans. The American people are fully aware
of what is going on, and just as they managed to stop the war in
Vietnam, they may, when no convincing explanations are forthcoming,
manage to persuade Bush's psychoanalyst to prescribe a sedative
and put an end to this nightmare.
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