A blistering critique from the Army War College says President Bush’s war on Iraq was unnecessary and has, “diverted attention and resources away form securing the American Homeland against further assault…” Penned by professor Jeffrey Record, the diatribe has predictably garnered little support in Washington. In fact, Donald Rumsfeld is so consumed with washing the blood of 500 soldiers off his hands that he hasn’t even read the darn thing. Secretary MacBeth notwithstanding, Pentagon officials publicly characterized the report as childish and unrealistic, yet it proved unnervingly prescient when a suicide bomb tore through Des Moines last Monday night. The assailant, Congressman Dick Gephardt, committed political hara-kiri in an attempt to take out former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Gephardt’s attack eviscerated a quarter century on Capitol Hill and nearly decapitated Dean’s grassroots campaign. The Governor, critically wounded and squealing like a stuck pig, was airlifted to New Hampshire where pundits expected a partial recovery.

Despite Joe Lieberman’s drivel, the capture of Saddam remains a non-event and the White House is increasingly hard-pressed to justify the war and it’s attendant casualties. David Kay, who recently stepped down as Bush’s WMD bloodhound, cast grave doubts on the possibility of recovering any unconventional weapons. As for Iraq’s weapons stockpiles, Kay told reporters, “I don’t think they existed,” adding, “We don’t find the people, the documents, or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on.” Kay’s replacement, former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, didn’t give the administration any cause for optimism when he said, “I think that Mr. Kay and his team have looked very hard. I think the reason they haven’t found them is they’re probably not there.” High-ranking members of the administration continue to eschew their own hand-picked experts; Colin Powell now concedes WMD discovery an “open question”, while Dick Cheney defiantly stated in an interview that, “The jury is still out.” Well, yes, and so is Amelia Earhardt.

Who isn’t out (besides Jodie Foster) is any of the 40,000 soldiers who received “stop loss” orders from the Army. These are not the securities directives that landed Martha Stewart in federal court; rather they mean that military personnel cannot leave he service once their enlistment is up. A back-ended conscription of sorts. Defense analyst Ted Carpenter opined, “Clearly, if large numbers of personnel have their terms extended against their will, that violates the principle of volunteerism.” David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization observed that, “There is no question that the force is stretched too thin.” And with National Guard recruitment 10,000 below plan, Carpenter thinks the government may revive the draft. Though Dennis Kucinich is admittedly closer to psychiatric lockdown than the White House, he managed to hang a told a Sword of Damocles over 18-24 year-old voters when he told a student rally that, “The body count keeps rising [and] we are not that far away from this country moving toward a draft.”

Election fever is spreading like wildfire, even consuming Tehran where liberal lawmakers were reinstated on a national ballot after being disqualified by the hard-line Guardian Council. President Mohammad Khatami had threatened to resign if the council, made up of fundamentalist clerics appointed by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khameni, did not reverse itself. President Bush lauded these developments, declaring, “Democracy must prevail. The will of the people should not be hijacked by a few unelected codgers in long robes.”

The President, in addition to smearing John Kerry, will claim in coming months that invading Iraq was directly responsible for Libya surrendering its nuclear weapons program to the U.S. Department of Energy. Personally, I’m waiting for Congressional hearings on this administration’s version of the Ed Meese / Iran-Contra slush fund. W. will also take credit for normalizing relations between India and Pakistan. Diplomatic ties were severed at the beginning of 2002 when Islamic militants attacked India’s Parliament and the two countries raced to the brink of thermonuclear exchange. The restoration of cross-border rail and air service means the only conflict extant is confined to the cricket field; As Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul Haq said of the upcoming test against his arch rivals, “ We are ready for the home series against India… with a superior bowling attack we think we can stop the Indian batting.” Quite civilized dialogue for folks that were ready to kill each other only a year ago. Even Pakistani President Musharraf and Indian P.M. Vajpayee got on like old chums during their recent summit. The two leaders agreed on a timetable for resolving the Kashmiri issue and announced that as a symbol of cooperation the duo will open a take-out curry shop in the new World Trade Center.