Federally funded Sci-Fi

August 20, 2004 1:55 PM

Federally Funded Science Fiction.The CIA announced today that next month's final report on Iraq's weapons program under Saddam Hussein will mostly encompass an analysis of what they believe Iraq would be like through 2008 had Bush not invaded the country. Because when you want accurate, detailed analysis of the future of Iraq's weapons, you turn to the group that got it completely wrong during the present.
posted by XQUZYPHYR (27 comments total)

The password protected link provides a great excuse to point out that bugmenot is alive and well.
posted by freebird at 2:26 PM on August 20, 2004

By 2005 we expect them to have manned spacecraft. By 2008, they will have a functional faster-than-light drive, matter transportation booths, and university-education-in-a-pill.

Oh yeah, and nukes.
posted by ilsa at 2:29 PM on August 20, 2004

It's absolutely essential that we prepare such forecasts, so that we can be prepared for what might happen should Saddam get back in power.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:30 PM on August 20, 2004

Bugmenot is back? Woo-hoo!

FFF, you are joking, right? I only ask because I heard someone on the radio talking about what he believed was just such a possibility.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:40 PM on August 20, 2004

Especially since it turns out that he and Osama bin Laden are - wait for it - ACTUALLY THE SAME PERSON!

*cue dramatic music*

In the far-flung future of 2008, an aging Osama bin Laden uses advanced genetic engineering technology to transform himself into a rotund Iraqi man from the mid-20th century, then travels back in time to build the weapons of mass-destruction he needs to destroy America!

Meanwhile in 2008, Saddam Hussein uses plastic surgery and futuristic weight-loss supplements to become a thin Saudi Arabian, and travels back in time to assemble a terrorist group capable of conducting vicious attacks on the brave citizenry of America!

Who can save America from this time-traveling terror? Only the brave men and women of the CIA, who struggle to raise America's consciousness of time-traveling terrorism before it's too late!
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 2:45 PM on August 20, 2004

Artist/Band: Prine John
Lyrics for Song: Living in the Future
Lyrics for Album: Great Days: The John Prine Anthology

Jehosaphat the mongrel cat
Jumped off the roof today
Some would say he fell but I could tell
He did himself away
His eyes weren't bright like they were the night
We played checkers on the train
God Bless his soul he was a tootsie roll
But he's a dead cat just the same

Chorus:
We are living in the future
I'll tell you how I know
I read it in the paper
Fifteen years ago
We're all driving rocket ships
And talking with our minds
And wearing turquoise jewelry
And standing in soup lines
We are standing in soup lines

Jake the barber's lonely daughter
Went down to her daddy's shop
She plugged herself to a barber pole
And took a little off the top
Pressure on the left. Pressure on the right
Pressure in the middle of the hole
I'm goin' to Maine on a forty foot crane
I'm gonna use it for a fishin' pole

Repeat Chorus

Old Sarah Brown sells tickets down
At the all night picture show
Where they grind out sex
And they rate it with an "X"
Just to make a young man's pants grow
No tops no bottoms just hands and feet
Screaming the posters out on the street
Strangling the curious and the weak
We give 'em what they want to see - O

Repeat Chorus
posted by chrid at 2:56 PM on August 20, 2004

In the second link, it is revealed that accounts by many of the CIA-debriefed families of Iraqi scientists prewar indicated that there were no more programs of WMD.

In response, a CIA spokesman said the families' statements were "not at all convincing."

This was the best spin that they could come up with? Christ, they need a new spokesman fast! And who exactly was convincing, Chalabi?
posted by crazy finger at 3:06 PM on August 20, 2004

In 2006, Iraqi president and longtime Western nemesis Saddam Hussein decided to challenge the economic embargo that had been in place against his country for nearly two decades by declaring that he had attained nuclear capability. This struck many in the West as absurd, since their renewed monitoring of Iraqi weapons facilities had not revealed any sudden advances that would have permitted Saddam to construct such devices. So, to drive his point home, Saddam dispatched a suicide bomber to explode a tactical nuclear device in one of the most prosperous Kurd communities in the Allied-protected north of his country. The man was intercepted, the device was captured, and its miniaturized mechanism was eventually determined to have been purchased in France.

It's already written, Caleb Carr took care of the tricky details in his SF novel Killing Time, published in 2002. Even has the nasty implication of France that Bush would have ordered.
posted by m@ at 3:08 PM on August 20, 2004

That is a pretty good joke XQUZYPHYR I really like how you intercepted nytimes and stole their password db to make it look real. You spent a lot of time on this, I can tell.
posted by Keyser Soze at 3:20 PM on August 20, 2004

?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:42 PM on August 20, 2004

Meanwhile in 2008, Saddam Hussein uses plastic surgery and futuristic weight-loss supplements to become a thin Saudi Arabian, and travels back in time

"I am called Valen, and we have much work ahead of us."
posted by kindall at 3:51 PM on August 20, 2004

posted by chrid at 4:00 PM on August 20, 2004

Crazy finger--
Yes, I'd say Chalabi was pretty damned convincing. A lying sack of shit con artist, too, but that's a con artist's schtick.
posted by adamrice at 4:22 PM on August 20, 2004

He was only at all convincing because he was telling the US administration exactly what they wanted to hear.
posted by influx at 4:36 PM on August 20, 2004

sidhedevil: proof yet again that truth is stranger than fiction. Here I was, saying things that were to be loony-funny, and some loony was saying the same things, but seriously.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:54 PM on August 20, 2004

Continuing Collateral Damage: The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq:

The health consequences of the 2003 war on Iraq will be felt by the Iraqi people for years, even generations.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 5:05 PM on August 20, 2004

This isn't the guy I heard on the radio, but same idea.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:07 PM on August 20, 2004

And this story made me think that maybe these guys aren't as crazy as I thought.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:10 PM on August 20, 2004

influx: What about the New York Times? Did Chalabi tell them what they wanted to hear as well? Give the guy some credit. W was snorting coke and passing out on texas teens at Rangers stadium when this guy was drafting plans for a new middle east...
posted by Voivod at 5:19 PM on August 20, 2004

Well, let's see. Based on what we know now, would Ghadaffi have given up his nuclear program? Would the Iranians? Maybe the Syrians or Egyptians or Saudis?
Each and every one of them at some point made efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, as individuals and in partnership. Pakistan was more than willing to provide the parts and technology. Russia is willing to provide nuclear fuel. China is forthcoming with the missile technology. But Saddam was different. He was a foreign leader who *would* have openly admitted to supporting Kerry. He would NEVER have tried to make nukes and hide them, or even use them.

But I'm sure the UN insured that the billions of dollars in kickbacks that Saddam was getting through the corrupt "Oil for Food" debacle was only being spent for conventional weapons, and not nuclear stuff.

Besides, what can you do with a country the size of France, with several billion dollars sitting around, 200 tons of yellowcake uranium and several hundred pounds of semi-enriched uranium, with hundreds of scientists capable of making nuclear weapons with parts smuggled into Iraq?

Well, gawrsh. If it has used WMDs, if it wants WMDs, if it can afford WMDs, if people want to sell it parts for WMDs, if it has illegal missiles that can carry WMDs, if it has scientists who can build WMDs, and it has nuclear material that can be processed to use in WMDs, well heck, IT'S OBVIOUS TO ME THAT THEY DON'T HAVE WMDs!

It certainly was to that guy who stepped on his Blix.


What were we thinking? Didn't we TRUST Saddam?
posted by kablam at 9:02 PM on August 20, 2004

kablam - who are you talking about? 200 tons of yellowcake and several hundred pounds of semi-enriched uranium? Has that been found in Iraq?
posted by crazy finger at 9:09 PM on August 20, 2004

Kablam, stay off the juice.

What were we thinking? Didn't we TRUST Saddam?

Yeah, I know Donny Rumsfeld should have chosen better friends. Always hanging out with the wrong sort...
posted by Jimbob at 9:47 PM on August 20, 2004

posted by solistrato at 12:36 AM on August 21, 2004

What were we thinking? Didn't we TRUST Saddam?

No, that's why they had inspectors on the ground forcing Saddam to bulldoze al samoud missiles. You know this.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:47 AM on August 21, 2004

(500 tons)
BBC interview with Jafar Dhia Jafar, father of the Iraqi Nuclear programme (skip to approx. 10mins 20secs)
posted by pots at 5:39 AM on August 21, 2004

Thanks, kablam, I needed a good laugh today.
posted by briank at 9:44 AM on August 21, 2004

that's the second time this had happened! I knew I was reading a post by kablam before I got to the end.
posted by mcsweetie at 12:08 PM on August 21, 2004