April Fool’s Day, gone horribly awry

Lynn Sislo links The Worst April Fool’s Day Hoaxes Ever, some of which are truly eye-popping in their awfulness. What struck me is that a couple of them were perpetrated by officials or affiliates of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Looking at the apparent sense of humor that existed within that regime, a lot of stuff about recent Iraqi history starts to become clear.

Here’s Number Ten:

On April 1, 2003, as thousands of American-led coalition troops stormed across Iraq, the Iraqi ambassador to Russia, Abbas Khalaf Kunfuth, held a press conference in Moscow. Many were expecting him to announce that Iraq conceded defeat. Instead Kunfuth chose this moment to hold a gag press conference. Holding up a piece of paper that he identified as a news flash from Reuters, he read aloud from it: “The Americans have accidentally fired a nuclear missile into British forces, killing seven.” Immediately the room full of reporters went silent with shock. Then Kunfuth grinned and shouted ‘April Fools!’ Only a few days after this unexpected moment of levity, the Iraqi government completely collapsed.

Read the rest. And here’s a list of more successful April Fool’s Day pranks.