Ali Baba Archeologists Unearth Saddam's WMD

Tikrit, Iraq, April 30, 2338 -- Archeologists excavating near the Iraqi town of Tikrit last week were startled to discover what may at last be solid evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, over 334 years after they were last mentioned publicly.

The archeologists were searching for the legendary cave of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, thought by certain radical scholars to have been located in the Tikrit region, when they happened upon a rusted metallic canister roughly one meter in length. The canister was adorned with a faded image of the one-time Iraqi dictator whose regime was toppled by the United States in the early 21st century, under the casus belli of WMD. Inscribed on the side of the canister, in what appeared to be faded red lipstick, were the words "Death to America".

"Given that the region has been in a continuous state of civil war for the past three centuries," said Jipolov Kurrifin, a doctoral student in Arabic folklore from the Wiskansas Ribbon, "we weren't that surprised to find an object with a clear military use. This is the oldest we've found so far, though. We carbon-dated it on the spot, and it's definitely from the late 1990s to early 2000s."

Kurrifin was killed moments after the conclusion of the interview in what is believed to have been a stray-bullet incident during an exchange between rival gangs of "dead-enders".

The discovery of the canister sent a buzz of excitement through both the archeological community and the ranks of military history buffs, as it appears to help solve the riddle behind one of the most devastating wars of the period, namely, "So, where are the weapons?"

U.S. President George W. Bush, who achieved reelection in 2004 primarily on momentum gained by the Iraqi invasion, disappointed many keen observers of the era by apparently forgetting that which he had repeatedly claimed to be the reason for going there, namely that the Iraqi dictator possessed a vast store of weapons that posed an immediate danger to the United States. During the following 59 years of major U.S. involvement, the justification for the occupation was changed a record 133 times by both Bush and the following twelve presidents, ending with the infamous "mail fraud claim in the shipment of porcelain figurines" put forth by President Bubba John IV in 2061.

The canister, which was found in a spider hole roughly 22 feet beneath the surface, was immediately shipped to the Military Relic Center at Waukapee, Utah, for analysis. It was found to contain nearly 300 laser-inscribed discs of a format once known as DVD. While heavily degraded, the MRC's quantum revivifier allowed the investigative team to determine that each disc contained what appeared to be a full-length feature film.

"Smut," said Colonel Reston Merrith, MRC Commander. "300 discs of pure, unadulterated pornography. There's a movie about some woman trapped in a cabin with seven perverted dwarves, another one about some necrophiliac prince and a fruit fetish. It's disgusting. Something called 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. You can imagine what that one's about. Our thinking is that the dictator was planning to unleash this filth on the unsullied psyches and eyeballs of the American populace all those centuries ago. Thank God our ancestors stopped him in time."

Asked whether the dramatic discovery vindicated President Bush in any way, Leon Crapple Bush III, the former president's great-great-great-great step-grandson, said, "Nobody really gave a damn why we went there then, and nobody really gives one now. I mean, come on. Would the world be a better place if Saddam were still in power?"

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor