Where are they now?
Petronelia Wyatt
'What my friends and I want to know is
where are all the weapons of mass destruction? Where is the mustard and nerve gas we were promised? Where are the tons of deadly ricin? Where are the missiles capable of causing, er, mass destruction?
It would seem a trifle odd to an ignorant bystander that Saddam hasn't used these things against the allies. The war is approaching its third week, but as of yet the coalition has failed to uncover WMD. All reports have turned out to be false alarms. This week US chemical scientists have been checking three claims that Saddam's arsenal has finally been discovered. Then came another let down, as the Americans admitted that the substances found at one site could be pesticides.
There are two possibilities. One, that the regime decided that propaganda would be better served by not deploying WMD. Second, that it doesn't have any. This creates a Morton's fork situation. On the one hand, it is a relief that Saddam hasn't poisoned our troops or destroyed us massively. (Incidentally, how much capability must a weapon have before it can be classified as a WMD? I would have thought that a machinegun in Safeway's on a Sunday could cause quite a bit of damage.) On the other, if he has no WMD then the moral justification for invading Iraq is seriously undermined, This would make Mr Bush and Mr Blair appear misinformed, as they have insisted that these weapons exist. As a patriotic half-English woman, I refuse to countenance this. Saddam simply must have deadly weapons and, as the coalition has been unable to find them, I decided to look for them myself.
If I were Saddam, I pondered, I would have quietly moved my WMD out of Iraq, perhaps into a country like Syria or at least into the hands of foreign sympathisers. This means that WMD could be anywhere. Saddam could have sent suicide planters to hide his weapons in any country where there are militant Muslims, or even Muslims. It suddenly occurred to me that St John's Wood would seem a perfect choice, given its large Muslim population which congregates around the local mosque. Since the war began I have noticed the crowd looking strangely triumphant. It couldn't just have been Iraq's laughable claims that it was winning.
Then I remembered a Hungarian au pair girl who left abruptly last autumn, tak
ing with her half the contents of my jewellery case and a friend's wallet. However, she did leave behind some luggage sacks which we put in the attic. Aha! Fishy or what? Perhaps this swarthy woman was an agent of Saddam, This would make her a Muslim, but, as the Turks occupied Hungary for a considerable length of time, her family possibly converted.
Thus I decided to open up the sacks. As a sensible precaution, I put on a Venetian mask. But when I opened the sacks they were empty. I asked Katalin, the housekeeper, if she knew anything about this. Yes, she did. The contents seemed liked odd bits and bobs and were taking up too much attic space. •So she had put them somewhere in my room.
My room! I now had to face the possibility that I was sleeping with Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. It was imper
ative that I find them at once. I opened my cupboard and had a good rummage, but all I could see were WMS. This stands for weapons of mass seduction. I refer to my clothes.
Then I thought perhaps the woman had concealed ricin and mustard gas in my bra cups. I had noticed that at least two bras had acquired a different, cone-like shape recently. How easy it would be to have the gas released on the London streets via my nipples. But then the new au pair, Anna Maria, who swore she was not Chemical Anna, said they had got that way during ironing. I was still convinced, however, that Cavendish Avenue concealed a cache of WMD. Mimi the dog had been burping a lot lately and I had detected an odd smell on her breath. Had capsules of sarin been stuffed down her throat, only to come up again when she belched? Reading up on the symptoms of exposure to this nerve agent, I found I had them all. I am dizzy when I get out of bed or the bath — it is no good my doctor saying this is low blood pressure. I feel nauseous — and this isn't because, as my mother insists, I eat too late. Skin blotches have appeared on my arm — and it isn't because I accidentally spilt some bleach over it the other day.
My father's sword-stick appeared to have been tampered with, moreover, and when I unsheathed the blade it was a pecu liar colour. In my father's hands it had been a weapon of mass destruction, killing thousands — of blades of grass. What damage might it do now? As for the long bit of metal the au pair left behind, which at first resembled part of a bedstead, I feel sure it is a long-range missile capable of killing all the inhabitants of London, realise too why the allies' alleged find of ricin turned out to be flour. The ricin is in my kitchen in bags of Homepride. For weeks I have wondered why our flour was of a different consistency than usual, but the truth has dawned. My mother's goulash has felled more than a few people lately. But then it has always been a weapon of mass destruction.
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