Saddam's Big Secret
compiled by: Rick Lane
Documents recently smuggled out of Iraq detail the history behind the Top Secret development of President Saddam Hussein's mustache.
The following chronology is excerpted from that file. . . .
In 1973, Saddam's widowed mother tells her son his political aspirations will be bolstered if he takes on a more-statesman-like appearance. He can accomplish this by growing a beard, long a symbol of Middle Eastern masculinity.
Saddam balks at his mother's suggestion. He fears having whiskers will enhance the probability of his being mistaken for his maiden aunt (Fatima) who once had mistaken his tongue for a roll of shelf paper.
Saddam is sent to his room without benefit of a bedtime story.
Saddam relents. He begins work. His mother wants something majestic and flowing but nothing that beer nuts can get lost in. Saddam discovers he is folliclely challenged and unable to raise even a single facial hair.
Saddam is sent to his room.
His mother takes Saddam to see a hypnotist. The power of suggestion produces a first class cold sore, but no whiskers.
The hypnotist is sent to his tomb.
Saddam vows to work on. He consumes large glasses of chocolate milk every hour on the hour in order to sustain a faux mustache. The effort is abandoned after his cousin Akmed affixes license plates to Saddam's widening girth and attempts to drive him to Baghdad.
Saddam experiments with shoe polish. His mother agrees it is a good start, but suggests the better spot for a mustache is beneath the nose.
Saddam abandons the shoe polish experiment after the media captures a few hard-to-explain episodes with baby kissing. The handshaking alternative proves ineffective. His popularity tumbles.
Top government scientists are called in. Scores of bearded ladies mysteriously disappear, sending the Iraqi carnival industry into turmoil.
Textile mills experiment around the clock and appear on the verge of a breakthrough. A shag blend shows promise until the concept is squelched by Saddam's vacuum-cleaner phobia.
The scientific community is sent to join the hypnotist.
Despondent, Saddam considers leaving politics and ponders a career in flamenco dancing.
Fortunes turn in Saddam's favor. During a tour of a chemical plant, he falls into a vat of synthetic testosterone, being prepared for the Iraqi armed forces. He emerges from the vat with a full-blown mustache.
Saddam's popularity soars. He is lionized in such publications as Dictator Digest and Sign Installer's Weekly.
He wields his mustache with newfound confidence, using it to fight his way to power and to sand small pieces of wood.
In 1979, his mustache assumes the presidency. Saddam insists on following. His mother is sent to her room.
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