ON THIS DAY

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March 19, 2003:

Iraq war begins.

On this day in 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush ordered air strikes on Baghdad, thus launching the Iraq War to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, who was believed (wrongly) to be manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.

Which gives me the opportunity to post a joke previously posted in Bytes.

Explanatory note: Famous fire extinguisher Red Adair died in 2004 aged 89. In his more than 50 years as a firefighter he extinguished nearly 3000 oil well fires. Among them were 119 fires in Kuwaiti oil fields at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

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When Saddam Hussein set the Kuwaiti oil wells on fire when facing defeat in the Iraq war, the Kuwaiti oil sheiks sought to recruit legendary Texas firefighter Red Adair to put out the fires.

When Red was first approached by a representative for the sheiks he replied that he was too busy, that he had more work than he could handle as it was but that his Irish cousin, Green Adair, might be able to deal with it.

The sheik telephoned Green and asked “Hello, is that Green Adair ….. ?”

“Yess, sorr, dat’s roight, 'tis me, Green Adair, at yer service …” said the voice at the end of the line.

“Mr Adair, that terrible man Saddam Hussein has set fire to our oil wells. Can you come and help us?”

The Irishman thought for a second and replied “Oh, I don’t know sorr, we’re awful busy at der moment . . .”

“We will pay you ten million pounds per oil well, Mr Adair” responded the sheik.

“Me an’ de lads‘ll be over in der mornin’ sorr …..” replied Green.

The next day at first light, a military jumbo circled the raging fires and then proceeded to land a short distance from the largest blaze. The cargo doors opened and a battered dark blue truck came hurtling down the ramp and sped right into the middle of the flaming inferno. As it came to a halt all of the doors opened and twenty Irish navvies in jackets and boots jumped out and started to furiously stamp up and down on the flames and beat the flames with their jackets.

Eventually the fire was extinguished. With BBC cameras filming and people patting Green on the back, Green was approached by the sheik who said to him “That was magnificent, remarkable. Tell me what you want and it is yours, ask anything.”

“Well.” replied Green, “der first ting, we’ll get der brakes on dat fockin’ trock fixed.”

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