The US will almost certainly then have engineered the improbable chimera it
claims to be chasing: the marriage of Saddam's well-armed secular brutality
and al-Qaida's global insurrection. Even if, having held out for many weeks
or months, Saddam Hussein is found and killed, his spirit may continue to
inspire a revolt throughout the Muslim world, against the Americans, the
British and, of course, Israel. Pakistan's unpopular leader, Pervez
Musharraf, would then find himself in serious trouble. If, as seems likely
in these circumstances, he is overthrown in an Islamic revolt, then a
fundamentalist regime, deeply hostile to the west, would possess real
nuclear weapons, primed and ready to fire.
I hope I've missed something here, and will be proved spectacularly wrong,
but it seems to me that the American and British governments have dragged
us into a mess from which we might not emerge for many years. They have
unlocked the spirit of war, and it could be unwilling to return to its
casket until it has traversed the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,926820,00.html
EXTERIOR- IRAQ- EXCAVATION SITE- NINEVEH- DAY Pickaxes and shovels weld
into the air as hundreds of excavators tear at the desert. The camera pans
around the area where hundreds of Iraqi workmen dig for ancient finds. The
caption Northern Iraq appears at the bottom of the screen as the digging
continues. The camera then follows a young boy running bare foot over the
rocky mounds. He comes to a stop and the camera is positioned in between
the boys legs looking at and aging man also digging. YOUNG BOY (In Iraqi
language) They've found something... small pieces. MERRIN (In Iraqi
language) Where? YOUNG BOY (In Iraqi language) At the base of the mound.
The boy runs off and the old man pulls himself to his feet to follow. The
old man walks to the base of the mound where another man who looks in
command is there to greet him. MAN (In Iraqi language) Some interesting
finds. Lamps, arrow-heads, coins... The old man picks up an old pendant and
holds it up. MERRIN (In Iraqi language) This is strange! The man dusts the
pendant and takes a look. MAN (In Iraqi language) Not of the same period.
The old man reaches into a hole in the rock, moving and re- arranging small
rocks to see what he can find. He grabs a pickaxe and scrapes out a small
sculpted piece of rock crushed into another. The man takes a dust brush
from the man's pocket and brushes some dust from the sculpted rock. As the
dust is swept we see that it is a face. The old man recognises it and looks
worried. He brakes the sculpted rock away from the ordinary rock and takes
a good look at it. EXTERIOR- IRAQ- MARKET PLACE- DAY An Iraqi man walks
through the noisy crowd with a tray and up to the old man's table. He puts
the drink on the table and watches as the old man opens a small pendant
full of pills and puts one into his mouth. The old man is trembling with
fear as he downs his drink. He puts the glass down and looks at the people
around him. The man with the tray comes back to the old man's table and
picks up the glass. MAN WITH TRAY (In Iraqi language) Something else?
MERRIN (In Iraqi language) No thank you. The old man stands up and looks at
the bus boy. We cut to a group of workers hitting there hammers on an
anvil. The old man walks in there direction but stops as he sees one of the
workers stop work to wipe his brow. When the worker makes eye contact with
the old man we see that the worker has one eye without pigment, bleached
white as if it has rolled backward. The old man stares at him and then
walks on. INTERIOR-IRAQ-ARCHAEOLOGIST'S OFFICE- DAY We see a clocks
pendulum swinging, uncovered sculpted rocks of all kinds and a man sitting
at a desk writing up the report on what they found. The old man picks up
the pendant he found and then the rock head he found and takes a look.
MERRIN (In Iraqi language) Evil against evil. The man at the table looks
confused. MAN (In Iraqi language) Father... We then see the clocks pendulum
stop over the old man's shoulder. He turns around and walks toward it.
After looking he sits down beside it. As he sits the man at the desk stands
up. MAN (In Iraqi language) I wish you didn't have to go. MERRIN (In Iraqi
language) There is something I must do. EXTERIOR- IRAQ- OUTSIDE
ARCHAEOLOGIST'S OFFICE- DAY The two men shake hands and hug. The old man
walks away and a group of people bow in a row. EXTERIOR- IRAQ- MARKET PLACE
- ALLEY WAY- DAY The old man walks through the noisy, crowded alley way and
exits through the other side. As he exits he approaches a tunnel, in the
distance we can here a bell ringing quite fast. As the old man gets closer
to the tunnel the bell gets louder. When he reaches the tunnel a horse and
cart flies out in front of him, aboard the cart we see a frightened old
women. The old man looks around as if he was lucky to survive. EXTERIOR -
IRAQ- NINEVEH- DAY The old man arrives back at that dig site in a small
jeep. As he pulls up two armed guards rush out. When they see who it is the
old man gives them a wave and they slowly walk back to there quarters. The
old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon
Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to
a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he
looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks
falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he
hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an
evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a
classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises
rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in
volume. EXTERIOR- GEORGETOWN- CITY STREETS- EARLY HOURS We are transformed
from the blazing suns of Iraq to the dusk of Washington. As the cross fade
is made, the caption GEORGETOWN appears at the bottom of the screen. We
slowly zoom in on a house in the distance.
A young mans head is beginning to spin and CATO pronouncements spew out...
