Prime Minister Francis Urquhart and 9/11

[Sargon]

Hmmm interesting developments....will be fun seeing how he deals with this!


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose

[MarkWhittington]

Francis Urquhart was vexed. The current Arab-Israeli War was in its second week and it looked like the Israelis were winning. Two Israeli divisions had swept through Southern Lebanon and had just cleared the territory of Hezbollah terrorists south of the Latani. Another division had broken through into the Bekka Valley and was on the point of entering Baalbek and eliminating the terrorist bases around that city. Three divisions were pushing out of the Golan Heights into Syria, tying up most of what was left of the Syrian Army, threatening Damascus. In the meantime, counter insurgency operations were being conducted in Gaza and the West Bank. The grave news from there was that Arafat had been killed in a crossfire in Ramallah, with a result that the Palestinians had lost all cohesion and were just as busy fighting each other as they were fighting the Israelis.

Some—especially in America—thought that these were positive developments. The Israelis were, they reasoned, just fighting their own War on Terror. Urquhart was not disposed to agree. The Arab-Israeli War meant that there would be no invasion of Iraq this year. Likely the next as well. Not even the Americans, who were supporting the Israelis with supplies and intelligence, would disagree with that. An invasion of Iraq would require at least the tacit support of the Gulf States and Jordan, which would not be forthcoming if it were seen as being in support of Israel. And it would be, since technically Iraq was a combatant. But Saddam, being no fool, had been long in promises of support to Syria and her terrorist allies and very short in actual support. He would not send any of his precious army, still damaged from the mauling it got in the Gulf War, to be chewed on by the Israelis. Jordan and Egypt were sitting this one out as well.

The second problem the Arab-Israeli War had caused was an eruption of domestic opposition in Great Britain. There had already been one pro Arab demonstration in Trafalgar Square (matched by a smaller, pro Israel demonstration) blasting “human rights violations” by both the Israelis and the Urquhart government. Publicly Urquhart called for peace in the region, an end to hostilities, and a return to the Oslo process, blah, blah, blah. Privately Urquhart knew that the genie was out of the bottle and there would be no turning back. The shape of the Middle East would be decided on the battlefield.

The third problem was oil. The Kingdom of Heaven may run on righteousness, but the kingdoms of the Earth run on oil. There had been no oil embargo as there had been nearly thirty years before, but the price of the product had gone into the stratosphere. Good for British Petroleum and her sister companies, bad for the British consumer. Urquhart’s long term solution was to encourage a revival of nuclear power, something else that was disturbing his enemies on the Left.

But a short term solution? It was clearly time to find a scapegoat. Not the oil companies; they were Urquhart’s warmest supporters. But there were people who were profiting from the high price of oil. Urquhart had on his desk a report from MI5 on a UN program called Oil for Food. The idea was that Saddam’s regime would be permitted to sell oil, but only for products essential for Iraq’s people, such as food and medicine. The program, Urquhart found, was rife with corruption and graft on a scale unimagined up until now. Billions had been raked off of the program and had gone into the pockets of certain supporters of the Saddam regime in Europe and the Third World. The money Saddam skimmed off went to build vulgar palaces and buy weapons.

One such person who MI5 implicated was an irritating little man by the name of George Galloway. He had spoken at the Trafalgar Square rally and had compared Urquhart to both Hitler and Oliver Cromwell. Urquhart permitted himself to be flattered just a little from the latter comparison. But now Galloway and his ilk would soon find out what it meant to cross a 21st Century Cromwell.

Urquhart picked up his phone. “Get me my Press Secretary.”

[DAv]

But now Galloway and his ilk would soon find out what it meant to cross a 21st Century Cromwell.

I've got a feeling that I'm going to love this.

[vandevere]

Oh, my...

I loved to hate Ian Richardson's Dear Old FU...

Now, I'm loving reading this...

Keep it coming...

[whatisinaname]

Hello MarkWhittington

This is a great story, can't wait for the next part

[Sargon]

Fascinating installment.

Galloway's in for it. He had to be really, considering it is FU's Britain.


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose

[MarkWhittington]

It was said that the House of Commons was the last place that even FU had not been able to suppress free speech. This was not entirely so. Woe betide any Tory back bencher who was so incautious as to speak out of school. The Labour members, however, were free to speak their minds, albeit under the more relaxed control of the Labour Whip.

Francis Urquhart didn’t mind much. He rather enjoyed the cut and thrust of Question Time when he sparred with one of the long line of Labour leaders who had served during Urquhart’s tenure. His favorite moment had been when he had put Tony Blair in his place, back in the mid 1990s, over something to do with the quality of patient care under the newly privatized National Health System. Blair was gone now, retired.

“Will the honorable gentleman please explain why a member of this body was carried off into the night in violation of his legal rights that ought to be enjoyed by every British citizen?”

Urquhart smiled. “I am rather astonished at the characterization of the gentleman’s question. The member from Glasgow Kelvin, as everyone who has read the press reports knows, has been implicated in a scheme to literally take food from the mouths of Iraqi children in order to enrich himself. There is further evidence that he had conspired against the security of this country with certain foreign tyrants of his acquaintance. He has been afforded his full rights under the Terrorism Act.”

Cries of “Hear hear!” sounded from the Tory benches, followed by “Shame!” from the Labour benches. Urquhart smiled. He had made his point. But the Labour leader decided to persist.

“And when will the public and the House be privy to this ‘evidence?’”

“In the fullness of time, I assure you.” Urquhart had been informed that Mr. Galloway was very close to breaking under interrogation. That and what had been found in his flat revealed him to be a very indiscrete gentleman indeed.

A Tory member, Mr. Hague, rose up. “Will the gentleman inform the House of preparations for British participation in the peace keeping force to be deployed in Syria by NATO.”

“Certainly. As everyone knows, with the recent deaths of Bashir Assad and most of the Syrian General Staff, the nation of Syria has been plunged into chaos. In order to prevent that country’s neighbors—“ Iraq, Uruqhart thought, those other would say Israel. “—from taking advantage, a force of a fifty thousand troops, American, British, French, and Italian are prepared to deploy about Syria, restore order, and eventually to arrange for free elections.” And incidentally be positioned on the western border of Iraq. “Another ten thousand will be deployed to the Lebanon to assist in the disarming of the Hezbullah remnants and the establishment of a free and independent government. We thus hope that a peaceful resolution of the recent Middle Eastern conflict will be possible.”

Lucky about Bashir and his Generals—the real rulers of Syria—dying in that bombing raid. It had been assumed that the raid had been carried out by Israelis. In fact, the bunker that the Syrians had been meeting in had been hit by a secret RAF flight operating out of Cyprus. The Syrian Army had subsequently melted away, with the largely Sunni population rising against their Alawite rulers.

The rest of Question Time covered domestic concerns. Afterwards there would be some debate on a Soft Drinks tax bill. This would allow Urquhart to duck back to Number 10 and get some real work done. He would be conducting an interview in his office with an American reporter.

He was sitting down at his desk, going over some transcripts of interrogations, when his buzzer rang. Urquhart picked up his phone. “Yes?”

“Ms. Brady to see you, sir,” said his Private Secretary.

“Send her in straight away.”

He hung up the phone and rose to his feet.

The door opened and a blond, well manicured, nattily dressed woman entered his office. For a moment, Urquhart was shocked. The woman had a startling resemblance to someone else. He shut his eyes and remembered a soft, yielding body of a girl half his age, and a cry of, “Daddy!” as she plunged to her doom. Where he had thrown her.

“Prime Minister, it is an honor to talk with you in person,” the woman said. Urquhart was brought back to himself. The soft twang from—Texas—was nothing like her voice. “I’m Sharon Brady, from the Weekly Standard.” She stuck out her hand.

Uruqhart smiled wolfishly and took the proffered hand. “How very pleasant to meet you, Ms. Brady.”

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Damn, this just keeps getting better and better.

This is going to end like Richard III, isn't it?

[whatisinaname]

I agree with Ivan Druzhkov this does just keep getting better and better.

[Sargon]

Ah, another young lady for FU to manipulate and have some extra-curricular fun with...

Yes, it'll end badly, at least for her if FU's previous record is anything to go by.


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose

[MarkWhittington]

There were times when Francis Urquhart truly loved Mrs. Urquhart. It happened when she would announced, matter of factly, that she was taking a trip to the country for a while, leaving her beloved husband time to work his venerable wiles on the latest in a string of young, lady reporters. Spinning the message, Urquhart mused, was never so much fun in these circumstances.

He invited Ms. Brady for a second interview up to the private quarters at Number 10 over dinner. This was the first time he had entertained an American. But part of establishing his legacy would involve gauging his image across the pond and then burnishing it.

“So, Ms. Brady, what exactly is a ‘Neoconservative?’” he asked her as her poured the first wine. The savoring aroma of the French Onion soup was tantalizing.

“Well, my boss, Mr. Kristol, once said it is a Jewish plot to take over the world, aided and abetted by the Christian Right and led by Colin Powell and Condi Rice,” she replied.

He laughed. “That’s very droll.”

“A Neocon, strictly speaking, is a liberal who’s been mugged by history.”

“Do elaborate?”

“9/11 is the current catalyst. Before, a lot of folks believed that we could appease the Islamo terrorists, maybe even come to an accommodation with them by understanding why they are angry with us. It’s remarkable how three thousand dead people can change some minds.”

“Indeed, indeed.”

“Of course the shock is almost two years old, so unfortunately some people are getting back into old, bad habits.”

“Of course. I’ve the same problem over here.”

“But nobody hit any targets in Great Britain. Ground Zero—that’s what we call the hole where the World Trade Center is—still exists to remind folks in the States. But there’re already people who think we shouldn’t be in Syria and are even counseling against an attack on Iraq, even though Saddam does have WMDs and he’s paying Palestinian families to blow up their children.”

“Perhaps we’ve been a little too successful, stopping terrorist attacks.”

“Not that I would want any to occur.”

“Certainly not.”

Urquhart smiled.

The sudden idea he had so intrigued him that he was only a little disappointed when Ms. Brady left soon after dinner, begging magazine deadlines, with just a chaste peck on the cheek. There would be other opportunities along those lines. For now, time to wake the world up again.

[whatisinaname]

Hello Mark

Another great part can't wait for the next part

[MarkWhittington]

“It has been confirmed,” said the newsreader on the BBC. “The Queen Mother Diana has died, the victim of a terrorist bombing in Paris along with her companion, actor Russell Crowe. The Palace has issued a statement expressing the, “Profound grief and outrage at the death of the mother of the King.” Crowds are gathering at Buckingham Palace, leaving flowers and other mementos as an expression of sorrow and bereavement of the woman people are already calling, “The Peoples’ Queen.”

Francis Urquhart turned the television off. This development gave him no pleasure, though he was instrumental in bringing it about. He had liked Diana, particularly when she had been so instrumental in helping to bring to a close the short and lamentable reign of Charles III. The now Duke of Windsor (Urquhart had relished the choice of the title) was somewhere in the south of France with his second wife, Camilla. No doubt he would be obliged to show up at the funeral.

Still, she had restarted—after an interval—her indiscrete ways. The latest scandal happened when Crowe had gotten into a fight in a hotel bar over some imagined slight to the Queen Mother. In a way, though, Urquhart enjoyed the fact of his death more than hers. He had really hated the film Gladiator for the violence it had done to Roman history.

A day later, he entered the House of Commons, appropriately grim faced. When the House was called to order, Urquhart was immediately recognized by the Speaker.

“It is my solemn and sad duty to report on the circumstances of the death of the Queen Mother, Diana,” he said. “The French authorities have ascertained the identity of the suicide bomber who murdered the Queen Mother and her companion, Mr. Crowe. His name was Khalid bin Yusef, a Palestinian Arab who was in France on a student visa. Mr. bin Yusef was connected to the terrorist group Hamas and it was apparently on orders of this organization that he undertook the terrorist attack. A so called “martyrs video” was found in Mr. bin Yusef’s Paris flat in which he attempts to justify this heinous act. The things that are said on this video are so vile that I shall now defile the House by repeating them.” Especially since the fact that Bin Yusef had called Diana a “godless whore.” would be repeated on every news network in the world, starting with Al Jazeera.

The House rumbled with various expressions of unrest and bubbling anger.

“There is more,” said Urquhart. “The Israeli Mossad has informed out MI6 that Mr. Bin Yusef’s family in the West Bank town of Ramallah has been paid the sum of fifty thousand American dollars for the death of Bin Yusef by the government of Iraq. There is therefore evidence that Saddam Hussein himself had a hand in the death of the Queen Mother and that he intended to strike at the most sacred institution of this island, the Monarchy.

The House erupted at that point. Members were on their feet, shouting and shaking their fists. Vainly the Speaker pounded her gavel and cried, “Order! Order! I shall have order!”

Eventually the noise subsided enough for Urquhart to add, his voice rising, “I pledge to you and the nation that this government shall not allow this atrocity to go unanswered. Murder has been done; murder most foul! The perpetrators shall be brought before the bar of justice! So help me God!”

The noise that arose then was like the roaring of a storm tossed ocean. The Speaker made a half hearted attempt at the gavel, then gave up.

The first world leader to offer full support was the American President, not too surprisingly. The son, Urquhart knew, wanted to finish the job that the father had left undone. The second, much to Urquhart’s surprise, came from the French President. The murder had taken place on French soil, buttressing talk about how France was a weak link in the War on Terror. It looked as if even Chirac was capable of being embarrassed into action.

When, a few hours later, Tarik Aziz denied categorically any involvement by the Iraqi government in the death of Diana, no one was prepared to believe him.

[David bar Elias]

Bye-bye Saddam......I'm guessing there's going to be at least some sort of analogue to Abu Ghraib....although from the British this time.

Excellent story! Keep up the good work!

[DAv]

FU, you son of a canine of the female persuasion... Great (If rather chilling) update!

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Poor, poor Russell Crowe.

He's throwing phones at angels now.

[whatisinaname]

Another Excellent part.
This is just keeps getting better and better.

[whatisinaname]

Bump and waiting for next part

[MarkWhittington]

Even before Diana was placed in her crypt at the Spenser Estate, preparations for the War on Iraq had been set into motion. When Prime Minister Urquhart had authorized the expansion of the British Military back in the 1990s, he had primarily thought it as a way to alleviate chronic unemployment. The idea was to get unemployable British youths under the colors, teach them useful trades and self discipline, and then after a term of service of a few years, turn them loose on British society.

A side effect had been the establishment of the largest British military establishment since the Korean War. The “New Model Army” (as some in the press insisted on calling it, taking up the Cromwellian theme) would be able to comfortably place three divisions into the field along side the American forces against Iraq. Add to that contingents from France (a mechanized brigade), Poland, Australia, and other countries, and an overwhelming force would be applied for regime change in Iraq.

Such was the world wide outrage over the murder of Diana, there was little if any talk that the action was precipitous. By February, 2002, the forces were ready. An air and missile bombardment which devastated the Iraqi military establishment preceded the invasion. Then columns jumped off from four directions, the US 4th Division out of Turkey, the British 1st Division, the French Mechanized Brigade, and the US 101 Air Cavalry Division out of Syria, the British 2nd Division, a Jordanian Brigade, and the US 1st Marine Division out of Jordan, and the 1st and 3rd US Army Divisions, the 2nd Marine Division, and contingents from Australia, Poland, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia from Kuwait.

Significant Iraqi resistance collapsed in the first week. The rest of the campaign had consisted of running fights with irregulars such as the Saddam Fedayeen. By the end of February, Baghdad had fallen and it was all over.

Not quite—though. By the summer of 2003, terrorist action had started to be a little more than an irritant. Sniping and bombing had started to kill coalition troops in twos and threes each day. At first Urquhart had not worried over much about that. The death toll in Iraq was a pittance compared to wars of the past. Besides, the British had cut their teeth on counterinsurgency in Ireland and, before that, places such as Yemen, Malaysia, and Burma.

A more embarrassing development had been that Saddam had not fallen into Coalition hands. He had been last seen at some staged rally in Baghdad two days before the first Coalition forces had entered the city. Since then, even though Saddam sightings had become a common as Elvis sightings, there was no hard intelligence as to where he was.

But by the autumn, things we starting to drag on. True, a truck convoy filled with chemical and biological weapons had been intercepted headed for Iran during the first days of the war, so no one could argue that the invasion was not justified on those grounds. And Urquhart’s people had been able to plant evidence of Saddam’s compliancy in the death of Diana in Iraqi Intelligence archives. But questions were starting to be raised, in Parliament, and elsewhere. When will the insurgency be brought to an end.

Sarah Brady, who had been embedded with one of the American units, told him over dinner one night that it was starting to be an issue in the upcoming American elections. A former governor of Vermont named Howard Dean, thought to be the front runner, was actually suggesting that the campaign was a mistake and that the Coalition should pull out. Urquhart felt a pang when he heard that one. He rather liked George Bush, boy scout as he tended to be, and much preferred him over his predecessor. Urquhart still remembered listening to the recordings of certain phone conversations obtained by MI6 between the 42nd President and a certain intern. A very indiscrete gentleman, Urquhart mused. He disliked the idea of dealing with another of the same party.

Urquhart was confirmed in his good opinion of the American President when he turned on the news one day in late November.

“American troops serving in Baghdad received a surprise guest today, on the occasion of the American Thanksgiving holiday.” And there, in the middle of a war zone, was President George W. Bush, being cheered by American soldiers as he entered the dining hall. This was followed by a shot of him eating Turkey alongside brawny, clean limbed men and women in desert camies.

“Too bloody brilliant!” Urquhart murmured. Then he made a decision. What was good enough for the American GI was certainly good enough for the British Squadie. Christmas was just around the corner.

[whatisinaname]

Another great part