Runcible Blog

These are some of Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi's secret sketches for two illegal long-range missiles, one using two engines and one using five boosters.
Photo Credit: Preston Keres -- The Washington Post

When I saw these advanced sketches, I thought I was looking at The Onion, but actually the image comes from this Washington Post story about Iraq's weapons programs. The story deconstructs the pre-war claims of the "grave threat" Iraq's WMD's posed to the world.

The broad picture emerging from the investigation to date suggests that, whatever its desire, Iraq did not possess the wherewithal to build a forbidden armory on anything like the scale it had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Bam!

The article says that Iraq may have been working on designing long range missiles based on the Al Samoud, missiles which the Iraq declared to the UN and which UNMOVIC subsequently destroyed. These secret, longer range missiles were never built and seemed to rely on obsolete designs. In fact,

In test flights, the Al Samoud missile never landed -- literally -- within a mile of its target. In 2001, Tamimi obtained a small black-market supply of precision Russian gyroscopes. He hoped they would increase the missile's accuracy from about 1.5 miles to 500 yards. To increase accuracy still further, he said "we were near success" in negotiating a contract -- he would not say with whom -- for a complete Russian-built inertial navigation system.

But it appears that the engineers never succeeded (due to the embargoes, containment, and constant UN pressure/inspections) in building any such missiles. Furthermore, Dr. Kay's investigation team is uncovering a web of internal deception aimed to appease Saddam Hussein and deter foreign conflict by exaggerating their own WMD claims.

"Saddam Hussein ordered this work, but where would we get the materials?" said an Iraqi general who declined to be named and who kept close tabs on Tamimi's missile designs. "This was the case in every field. People would prepare reports under the order of Saddam Hussein and the supervision of the people around Saddam Hussein. But it was not real."

The story paints a picture of an Iraqi weapons program plagued by obsolete technology, infighting, exaggerated claims, and lack of materials -- a far cry from the "grave danger" this administration warned against in the run-up to the war.

I hope this story gains traction and that more people start waking up to the Bush administration's pattern of lies.
As my bumper sticker succinctly states: "George W. Bush: Ignorant, a Liar, or Just Incompetent?"
No matter how you slice it, it's bad news for the country.

Well, I'm back from vacation now. Whoo! It was great.

Oh, wait, I didn't take a vacation. I was just lazy about writing anything.

But now, 10 days after the new year, I'm ready to make resolutions. As soon as I think of a resolution to keep, I'll resolve to keep it. Perhaps I should resolve to write more sordid details of my life. I'm sure google searchers would benefit from knowing that I had a piece of drywall stuck in my eye today, for instance.

Seriously though, I'd like to recap the past month or so, but uhh...I can't quite remember everything. I remember thinking on christmas that after 20 years I think I understand now that giving is better than receiving. Oh boy, what a revelation! not really. Every year I care less about christmas -- maybe because my room is so full of stuff that I don't want any new clutter.

I've seen a bunch of movies in the past month, including several from the Stanley Kubrick DVD box set that I got for christmas. I'll leave the reviews to Siskel and Kermit though.

New Year's Eve was somewhat memorable because I went to a party in Cambridge. The party wasn't that great, but it was better than sleeping. And the people were alright. That's a good thing, right?

Is it a bad sign that Wally is my hero these days? What does it say about my job if I seriously think about using this speech at work?

Earlier this evening, the shacknet.nu domain expired, and nunames.nu replaced the domain with a parking site. I sent an email to dyndns.org, who are responsible for that domain, and they renewed the domain for another 10 years (!). Their response seemed to indicate that they didn't know they were responsible for shacknet.nu. Either way, everything should be fixed now, and eventually funk.shacknet.nu will be back in DNS across the globe. It's a little annoying though...

update: It looks like it might take up to a whole day for the DNS to propagate! imagine all the important email I'll lose! (not really)

Since I'm not too keen about dyndns.org's reliability (though I really appreciate that they offer some useful free services), I went and bought another domain name. I already bought ADullMoment.com earlier this year, but I haven't really done anything with it other than switch my email to that domain. I had some ideas about content for adullmoment.com, but they were half-baked. Although I'll probably develop some content for that site, I present my newest domain:

Eventually I'd like to move away from funk.shacknet.nu, but that'll take a while. In the meantime, I'll have that nice poem on the front page and maybe a few other things there soon.

This guy at The Nation had something interesting to say about the capture.

Prime Realestate

The news accounts portrayed Saddam's hideout as a "spider hole", an underground ditch, but this little hideaway doesn't look half bad! It looks like a typical cozy one room apartment which might cost several hundred bucks per month in a big city. Sure, there aren't any windows, and there isn't much ventilation, but it appears to be fully equipped with a kitchen, running water, and an oven. There's also a bed, what looks like a couch, and an entertainment center! And considering Saddam had $700,000 cash in his bachelor pad, he could've thrown some extravagant parties! And is it just me, or does this picture remind you of Terry Kiser, A.K.A "Bernie Lomax" from Weekend at Bernie's (not to mention Weekend at Bernie's II)?

Seriously though, I'm a little put-off by the bloodthirstiness and propaganda surrounding Saddam's capture. I can understand why the Iraqi people would want to exact revenge on their former dictator, but when Americans gloat about ousting the dictator, it sounds more like cheering for the home team's touchdown than anything else. Even though he was a brutal tyrant, I wouldn't call for his head on a pike. What good would killing him do? In that picture I see an old man who just lost everything, including his two sons. That can't be a good feeling. Personally I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his short life, but ultimately it should be up to the Iraqi people to decide his fate.

So, although it isn't a popular thing to say, I have mixed feelings about his capture. It's good that he's "off the streets", but I doubt he was pulling any strings from his underground shack. Maybe now the Iraqi people can sleep with a little less fear though. On the other hand, I hope his possible torture and execution doesn't continue the violence he started. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just lock him up and throw away the key.

I wonder if those cheerleading Saddam's capture are also hoping for the swift toppling of Uzbekistan's own tin-pot dictator, Islam Karimov, a man who receives lots of aid from the U.S. and who happens to enjoy boiling his opponents alive. And somehow I doubt today's cheerleaders were making any noise when Saddam was a good buddy of the U.S.

Today's friendly dictator is tomorrow's bitter enemy. It's only a matter of time before every US subject is required to hiss and yell at a picture of Osama bin Forgotten for the "two minutes hate" every day.

Do you ever briefly forget who you are when you wake up in the morning?