Iraq War Inquiry: God To Be Called As Witness

[God, pictured taking a stroll on the beach near his retirement bungalow in Bournemouth]

The inquiry into the Iraq war, led by Sir John Chilcot, begins later today. It was announced that, as suspected, the inquiry would be calling a being known as ‘God’ as a witness, following claims by former American President George Bush and former British PM, Tony Blair, that they had both consulted this being before embarking on the war.

However, the being calling himself God has strongly denied having anything whatsoever to do with the whole affair. He has repeatedly claimed that he retired from his temporary position as the divine creator of the universe and begetter of mankind well before Bush or Blair were even born, and that he refused to speak with either one of them. God has also claimed he was even forced to go so far as taking out a Restraining Order on George Bush preventing the then-American President from attempting to make any contact at all with the Being.

In an attempt to clarify the – very limited - role he played in the lead-up to the Iraq War, the being calling himself God granted an exclusive interview to The Rope from his retirement bungalow in Bournemouth.

Yes, Bush kept calling, leaving messages on the answering machine. At first, I tried to tell him I’d retired, but he has a problem with difficult concepts… well with any concepts at all really… and with words. Well, to be honest he has trouble with anything more complex than sitting still and grinning.

He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. I kept telling him that even back in the days when people took religion seriously it was all mostly just PR stuff and I was there mainly only as a sort of vague nebulous placeholder for all the concepts people hadn’t managed to work out properly yet. But I’m sure you can imagine how hard it was to get such concepts across to a man who seemed to believe that The Flintstones was a serious in-depth archeologically-accurate documentary. As for telling him that me and Moses made the whole of the Bible up in the pub one night when the darts match against the Norse gods had been cancelled…. Well… I didn’t even dare try to explain that one to him.

In the end, I just got so tired of him praying at me, it was even worse than a double-glazing salesman. Eventually I had no choice but to take out the Restraining Order. Last I heard he was praying to a pretzel, or something. As for Iraq, there may have been something about it in one of those messages he left on the answering machine, but I just stopped listening to them after a while and just erased them as soon as they came in without listening to any of them.

As for the other one, Well, Tony Blair’s problem is that he thinks he is me, back before I gave up the day job that is, of course. The number of times I’ve been sorely tempted to smite that grin off his face. But, as the wife keeps telling me, I’m not a jealous god.

I stopped listening to Blair’s prayers when he started begging me to make him Pope, back when he was a teenager. I thought he’d settled for being Labour Party leader instead; after all there is not that much difference between the Labour Party and the Catholic Church, especially in the way they deal with heretics and non-believers.

So, when Blair said he was praying to God, and that I’d given him the OK, he was probably just looking at himself in a mirror, or something.

So, in short, this Iraq War had nothing at all to do with me squire. I learnt my lesson a long time ago about wars; I just decided to have nothing at all to do with them, no matter who claimed I was on their side.

I’ll tell you this for nothing, as well. I’ve seen a fair few political leaders ion my time and I’ll tell you that no one in their right mind would ever want to do that kind of job, but those who do want to do it should be the very last people on the earth allowed anywhere near it.

Anyway, I must be off the wife wants me to drop a plague of frogs on that Mrs Simpkins from up the road, who she claims she saw cheating at Bingo the other night. Women, eh? See you around, OK? Bless.