[CH] Rumsfeld warns first strike on Avery Island

maclagan8@bigpond.com
Wed, 30 Apr 2003 20:37:41 +1000

In a speech that surprised even such high-level Republican 
confidantes as Bill Frist, Tom Delay and Britt Hume, U.S. Secretary 
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today called on Congress to allow 
President Bush to proceed with plans for military action against the 
state of Louisiana.

"We do not have the luxury of time to debate our strategy," Rumsfeld 
told a group that included members of the Senate and House Armed 
Services Committees, leaders of both houses of Congress, and selected 
members of the news media. "Louisiana has demonstrated, time and time 
again, that it is not interested in peaceful coexistence with the 
United States," the Secretary claimed. "The leadership there says one 
thing and
does another. They tell the world that they have no desire to be 
aggressive, yet we have proof beyond a doubt that they are producing 
weapons of mass destruction, and that they would use them against us, 
especially if they had too much to drink."

"Louisianians are like that," he added.

When asked what types of weapons of mass destruction Louisiana had, 
Rumsfeld turned the podium over to Secretary of State Colin Powell, 
who produced a series of line drawings of Tabasco Sauce bottles and
containers of cayenne pepper.

"They have capsaicin," said Powell. "And frankly, "we have never 
before seen chemical weapons of this intensity. Each small bottle of 
Tabasco sauce contains 720 drops. A teaspoon of the stuff has 60 
drops. Two to
three drops of capsaicin at these levels can disable someone, and 
five to six drops can cause choking, heart palpitations, respiratory 
decompensation, and even death. Four drops if the person is from
Minnesota."

Powell went on to describe Scoville units, the units by which pepper 
heat is measured, and said that the deadly chemical was produced in a 
remote part of Louisiana known as Avery Island.

According to the dossier from which Powell read, when all four 
production lines of the Avery Island factory are in operation, over 
450,000 bottles of Tabasco can be produced in a single day. "That is 
enough to kill every man, woman and child in the free world many 
times over," he said.

Secretary Rumsfeld then returned to the podium and fielded questions 
about his new military directive, which he called a necessary assault 
on what President Bush is referring to as the Axis of Carville. "The 
President believes, and I agree with him, that no one in America is 
safe until Louisiana is disarmed," Rumsfeld announced.

When asked about the possibility of sending UN weapons inspectors to 
Louisiana, Rumsfeld became impatient: "There you go again, with the 
inspection song and dance. Don't you think that hasn't been tried? 
Every
inspector that was ever sent there wound up in New Orleans, and came 
back drunk and weighing an extra ten pounds. If you knew anything at 
all about Louisiana, you wouldn't be asking such an inane question."

Asked about the possibility of allowing Louisiana time to disarm on 
its own, Rumsfeld said intelligence reports showed that if left to 
their own devices, the state's leaders would eventually distribute 
capsaicin
throughout every major city in the United States. There are already 
more than a thousand Popeye's Fried Chicken franchises in the 
country, he said, and there are many other ways to introduce 
capsaicin to the
population.

"But what about Governor Foster?" a reporter asked. "Isn't he a 
Republican?" Rumsfeld smiled.

"We're really not sure anymore, after the November election," he said 
"and anyway, his term will be up soon. And if you don't think Mary 
Landrieu knows about the Tabasco plant, you are more naive than even I
could imagine."

Later, at a briefing on the latest addition to the growing list of 
places the United States will attack, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer 
was asked if President Bush had visited Louisiana. Fleischer replied,
"He thinks he may have been there when he was governor of Texas, but 
he isn't sure when. I think right now it's somewhat murky."

"Louisiana has a lot of oil, Ari," Helen Thomas asserted. My 
understanding is that it has 18 petroleum refineries, 27,250 
producing wells, and is home to two of our four strategic oil 
reserves. Do you
want us to believe that the proposed attack on Louisiana isn't part 
of the White House's plan to confiscate oil on a world-wide basis?"

"Helen, it's certainly true that Louisiana has a crude oil reserve of 
529 million barrels of oil, but the president has no interest in that.

What he does have an interest in is the security of the American 
people, and that security cannot be maintained unless Louisiana is 
disarmed of its stash of chemical weapons."

With that remark, Fleischer ended the news conference. Later, 
however, reporters had a chance to talk with President Bush, who 
invited some of them to the golf course. Asked if he thought an 
attack on Louisiana
would be hard to sell to the American people, the president replied 
that American citizens were becoming more and more suspicious of the 
motives of foreign countries, and that they would not hesitate to do 
whatever
was necessary to protect national security.

When told that Louisiana was one of the fifty states, Bush nodded and 
said "God bless America." Asked about allegations that the White 
House wanted to attack Louisiana for its oil, Bush turned and faced 
the group.

"I can assure you," he said, "I know all about the allegations. They 
are crawling around all the swamps in Louisiana. Some of them are > 
ten feet long. Make no mistake: we will hunt them down, and we will 
bring
them to justice."