BREMNER BIRD AND FORTUNE
SERIES 4 PROGRAMME 4
PART 1 OF 4
COLIN POWELL ADDRESSES THE UN - PART 1
POWELL:
Mr President, Secretary, distinguished colleagues, viewers of CNN, I know you‟re all keen to see what we‟ve got, I think you‟ll find it self explanatory.
V/O:
Baghdad, city of mystery and intrigue. Cradle of
culture since civilisation began, now come with us and experience a unique taste of the Middle East at Abdul‟s Shawarma Bar 5 minutes from this theatre. Coming soon a unique triple bill as ElBaradei and Blix return to the streets in „Lethal Weapon 2003 The Inspectors‟. Plus „When Bombs Get Smart‟, they know where they‟re going, in the classic wartime adventure, „Saddam Busters‟. And at last the one you‟ve been waiting for, our springtime special
feature. „It‟s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad War‟. Two days only. But first tonight‟s main bill.
(CAPTION IN STYLE OF CENSORS CERTIFICATE: Board of Film Censors. This is to certify that Sufficient Evidence has been passed as suitable for exhibition with PG Pentagon Guidance)
APPLAUSE & OPENING TITLES CAPTION
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MONOLOGUE
RORY:
Hello now look before I start tonight, um, I‟ve got to make an apology because several of the exquisitely detailed jokes in this week‟s show were supplied to us by British Intelligence. Um, who actually obtained them by downloading a comedy routine first performed by an American student 12 years ago. That‟s how old some of the Iraq report was. I mean that would be equivalent of me standing here doing jokes about John Major.
MAJOR:
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha.
RORY:
The report was apparently compiled by a Mr Hammell and Mr Pratt, a Mr Blackshaw, and a Mr Kahn. It sounds like Brain of Britain doesn‟t it?
ROBINSON:
Daaaa. Yes, so it‟s none to Mr Hammell, none to Mr Pratt, none to Mr Blackshaw, and none to Mr Kahn, and yes well done Mr Rangwala, who found them out. He wins a book token and this round of applause. Yes. Ah.
APPLAUSE
RORY:
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Thanks to, thanks to Martin Bashir and Jeremy Paxman there were two extraordinary television interviews this week. One, with a weird guy who‟s very popular in America…
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
RORY:
You‟re a little bit ahead of me on this one. And the other with Michael Jackson. That‟s a point though. Why not send in Martin Bashir as weapons inspector? He‟d charm his way into Saddam‟s confidence and then trap him into revealing his secrets.
SADDAM:
Yes, yes, I‟ve had members of Al Qaeda to stay here, but I always slept on the floor. Here‟s my favourite store. Yes, I‟ll take 5,000 of those, 600 of those, and oh I‟m clean out of Anthrax, yes. Yes charge them to my account as usual Mr Rumsfeld.
RORY:
Yet before you know it, before you know it we‟ll get a shot of Saddam dangling a chemical warhead off the balcony. Do you know, Michael Jackson‟s got a crèche on the top floor of his house so he can drop the kids off? Did you know that? Then there was that extraordinary Blair interview. Paxman flew out of his corner, landed 4 crushing blows, had Blair on the floor and then said..
PAXMAN:
Right, I‟ve had my fun, anyone else want a go?
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RORY:
The Prime Minister later rallied to make his main point.
BLAIR:
Look we said, we said we‟d go down the UN route, and that‟s what we‟re doing, but I made it quite clear, we‟ll only ignore the UN Security Council in one very specific set of circumstances.
PAXMAN:
What are they?
BLAIR:
If they disagree with us. I mean that‟s reasonable isn‟t it?
PAXMAN:
Yeah, do you pray together?
BLAIR:
Well no I don‟t actually.
PAXMAN:
I‟d start if I were you.
COLON POWELL ADDRESSES THE UN - PART 2:
POWELL:
Council as you know, weapons inspection teams have not found sufficient evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction so we have decided to provide our
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own. We haven‟t shown it up to now because it could compromise what intelligence we have. Besides, if the Iraqis aren‟t cooperating with the inspectors, why should we? What we will prove today is that we have two of the three things we need to prove what weapons he has. We have satellite photographs and we have artist‟s impressions. All we need now is to find the weapons themselves. As you know that is extremely difficult, extremely difficult. Which is why we‟re not prepared to give the inspectors any more time. General what we do know, is that less than a teaspoon of Anthrax, a small amount, around about this quantity, shut down the United States Senate and left two postal workers dead. As it happens it wasn‟t Iraqi Anthrax, it‟s probably some of our own made in Maryland, but the point is well made. If I can divert your attention to the screen. This is a conversation between two Iraqi scientists, enjoy.
SCIENTIST:
Hello.
RUMSFELD
Hello.
SCIENTIST:
Mr Rumsfeld? Hello?
RUMSFELD:
Hello?
SCIENTIST:
Mr Rumsfeld, have you got?
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RUMSFELD:
Hello?
SCIENTIST:
Have you got the chemical agents you promised to deliver?
RUMSFELD:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don‟t want anyone to see this message.
SCIENTIST:
Okay.
RUMSFELD:
Thanks.
SCIENTIST:
Hello?
POWELL:
Sorry, that er, that appears to be the wrong tape. Er, this I believe is the one you need to hear. This clearly shows things being moved around.
BUSH:
The danger is that Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam‟s madness and his hatred.
STRAW:
Systematic terror is perpetrated by Saddam on a daily basis against his own people.
BUSH:
Any country with active intelligence programme
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knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
BLAIR:
Saddam Hussein is not co-operating with the inspectors, and is therefore in breach of the United Nations Resolution and that‟s why time is running out.
POWELL:
As you heard there, conclusive evidence, you can quite clearly hear the arguments being moved around. From links to Al Qaeda, to human rights, weapons of mass destruction, to non-cooperation. Each time, keeping one step ahead of the criticism. But some of you may still believe Iraq is not a real threat, which is precisely why we have to bomb them now. Cos in 5 years when they do have the bomb we won‟t be able to. Cos if we do not act, the United Nations risks becoming irrelevant. We know that, because if you do not give us the Resolution we seek, our actions will make it irrelevant.
Thank you.
MONOLOGUE JOHN BIRD - GOOD MORNING BAGHDAD
JOHN BIRD:
Good morning Baghdad.
APPLAUSE
JOHN BIRD:
This is Colonel Jack Smithers of the British Peace
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Keeping Force, and this is our first broadcast to you, the men and women of Iraq. First though two important things you need to know. One is the war is over, hooray, hooray, hooray. Two you lost.
It‟s a tremendous honour for us Brits to be here
with our valiant American allies fighting side by side. Well at least I thought we‟d be fighting. I always thought that‟s what you did in the army, but no, actually when we got here the Americans said, oh no you‟re far to crap as a military force, we‟ll do that side of it, and when it‟s all over you get to do the peace keeping. Lovely, thanks very much. No, no, not at all, it doesn‟t matter in the slightest, we‟ve spent all our lives training to fight. That‟s perfectly alright it makes no difference that my regiment has a long and glorious history of beating Napoleon, the Kaiser, The Spanish, the Turks and various sorts of fuzzy wuzzies. No, no, peace keeping, terrific. You Americans get on with the heroic stuff we get to clear up the bloody awful mess afterwards. Just the sort of thing we look forward to, trying to keep the Shias from slaughtering the Sunnis, and both of em from slaughtering the Kurds, all of them from slaughtering us, and handing out nice cups of tea to any old crones who manage to survive the carpet bombing. Couldn‟t be better.
But we‟re not downhearted so don‟t you be. Ladies and gentlemen of Iraq try not to think of it as the end of thousands of years of civilisation but a new beginning. Shame about Babylon and Nineveh, but it‟s no use living in the past. We‟re going to introduce you to the joys of a free society, so next
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week you‟re invited to a special performance by Jim Davidson. Well, that‟s all for now, anybody who would like to be Prime Minister, form an orderly queue outside the quartermaster‟s office, and anybody who fancies a job as a British army Colonel, you‟re bloody well welcome to mine.
APPLAUSE
HOME OFFICE FILM - ANTI WAR MARCH
V/O:
Going to the anti war rally next Saturday? If so then the Home Office would like to help with a few handy hints to enhance your marching pleasure. For those coming by public transport, the nearest Underground stations to Hyde Park are, here at Cockfosters in the north. Here at Chalfont St Latimer in the West, and at Ipswich here on the Central Line in the East. If you‟re coming to the capital by car, you may find the centre very congested, so we suggest you park here in Luton and walk. To avoid a possible crush, marchers may like to consider staggering their start times. Those who‟s surnames begin with A-E may wish to start
their march here at the West Gate at 2 p.m. the rest should begin their march here at the North Gate on
thMonday June the 14. As you know, this government is as committed to democracy as you are, and fully supports free speech and free assembly, so do please make the most of the day because the following week congestion charges begin, after
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which the freedom to do anything will cost you a fiver.
MONOLOGUE WAR DEBT
CORBETT:
Now as we know, you know, war, war isn‟t inevitable,
but just in case, just in case, just in case the Americans have drawn up detailed plans for what happens afterwards.
JOHN BIRD:
It‟s called Nation Building and it‟s what they used to hate Bill Clinton for trying to do.
CLINTON:
Well amongst one or two other things of course.
JOHN FORTUNE:
There are precedents for rebuilding countries after wars. Very good one‟s in fact, Germany and Japan for example. And Iraq being a secular country with an educated and industrialised society might not be the worst place to start. The German model saw the country divided between the four allies, Britain, France, Russia and America. The Japanese model saw their country taken over by an American General.
JOHN BIRD:
Guess, which model the Americans, prefer?
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