The committee reports directly to Saddam Hussein. It is headed by Iraq’s vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan. Its members include Saddam Hussein’s son Qusay.
…We know that Saddam’s son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all prohibited weapons from Saddam’s numerous palace complexes. We know that Iraqi government officials, members of the ruling Baath Party and scientists have hidden prohibited items in their homes. Other key files from military and scientific establishments have been placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi intelligence agents to avoid detection…
…Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the world.
First, biological weapons. We have talked frequently here about biological weapons. By way of introduction and history, I think there are just three quick points I need to make.
First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and frustrating years to pry--to pry--an admission out of Iraq that it had biological weapons.
Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount--this is just about the amount of a teaspoon – less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shutdown the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope. Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material.
And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had. They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as there are 400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well-documented.’
11:35 P.M._
“But the presence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction wasn’t proved,” the Lawyer noted.
Kold nodded:
“Of course. The performance of Powell can be considered as a typical model of ‘so-called lies’, and although the world would like to believe them, and be guided by their good intentions, in the case of Iraq, the road down which we moved on this unfortunate country was paved with such intentions and, as you can see on the news everyday, it was a road to hell.”
The Lawyer wanted to say something, but Kold interrupted him with a raised finger:
“But! Then, in the spring of the 2003, we didn’t even guess anything. The war on terror had been declared two years earlier, and the enemy pure and simple wasn’t pure and simple: the blue corner of the ring was empty. And suddenly condensed into it was the dark shadow of the bloody dictator, moustached and degenerate, ready to lay waste to the whole world with anthrax. The referee hardly had time to cry out ‘Boxing!’ as all America spoiled for the fight.”
File 006.wav
“On one not so fine day I came to the Garage and came across a half-naked Neolani and Pincher rolling under a cover on the stove bench in Central Station. I didn’t know if they’d done anything or not, but boy was I mad. I completely lost it. I kicked over a plastic barrel full of paint, smashed a bunch of bottles and made one hell of a mess.
I think neither of them knew I could be that crazy. I didn’t even know it myself.
Finally, my rage spent, I asked Neo:
‘Are you with him or with me?’
She just smiled. Pincher stretched and lowered his lean hairy legs on to the dirty floor.
‘What’s up, Joshua-boy?’ he asked lazily. ‘Property rights on people were cancelled by Honest Abe. She is a free person. If she wants to sleep with you, she can. If she wants, she can sleep with me. And if she wants, she can sleep with Sparki.’
Sparki was the mangy dog that lived in thickets near the Garage. We fed him up and sometimes for fun we added magic mushrooms to the pieces of pizza or hamburgers we gave him.
Sparki had a bad trip and howled long and terribly. I imagined Neo on all fours, behind the twitching, howling Sparki, and I felt totally revolted.
‘Why are you silent?’ I asked Neolani.
She continued to smile. Still smiling, she rolled on her back, and I couldn’t see her face behind Pincher’s thin torso. He also smiled his usual wry douchebag smile, ready at any moment to stab you in the back.
‘Have a rest, Joshua-boy,’ Pincher said. ‘Go, find yourself a girlfriend firing on fewer cylinders. Little Liu is always ready, and she has a redhot uterus. And live in the present! There is no past, you forget. That’s my advice for you.’
‘I don’t need the advice of a motherfucking kid like you,’ I replied. He burst out laughing and thrust up his middle finger.
I left Central Station, determined to leave the Garage forever. But I hardly managed to reach the door before Neolani caught me up wrapped in the cover like a toga. She silently grasped me by the hand, turned me and embraced me, then stuck a kiss on my lips. But as she did the cover fell. She was completely naked…
Of course, I survived, but something changed, broke up, cracked, and it wasn’t the same any more. I sat down at the computer, and plunged into cryptographic programs. Enciphering data by transfer to networks began to interest me wildly. Indeed, I was hooked on it as strongly as I had been on the Garage. Once, we had discussed the freedom problem on the internet there and someone – Black Rick, I think, he always was nuts about such affairs – made this short speech:
‘The internet should have a program or special plug-ins that makes every user anonymous automatically. You need to prevent a targeted registration with data computation. This is the only way the internet can become a truly free territory, a place where no one owes anything to anybody and no one is afraid of anybody.’
Of course, what he spoke about was impossible. But maybe you could encrypt data to hide it all from the government, from hackers, and from the ubiquitous businessmen. That was a real possibility, and I became deeply engaged in it, partly to fill the vacuum left by Neolani’s treachery.
I visited Mr. Thewlis’s club too. At first it was interesting there, but soon I hit a ceiling. Mr. Thewlis and the college computers just couldn’t go where I wanted to go. And so my studies there came to an end, even though in theory I had another two years to go.
One day I talked to Mr. Thewlis about it. He took off his glasses, chewed a handle, looked at me thoughtfully and said:
‘As a teacher, I hate to hear this, but as a scientist I am flattered that you, Mr. Kold, were my disciple. You will go far, I assure you, and I… I will do my best to promote it.’
‘How?’ I didn’t understand.
‘You see, one person, the representative of a very reputable corporation engaged in developing products of the same kind as you, has asked me to acquaint him with prospective candidates. Do you think, Mr. Kold, that you would be interested in making such an acquaintance?’
As you probably guessed, I’m a bit of a sociopath and reluctant to meet strangers. They frighten me – not by their appearance, of course, but the potential threat introduced into my life. The threat alone was enough. Besides, after the break up with Neo I didn’t want to communicate with anybody at all, especially a stranger.