We're Coming

By Crispin Sartwell

LONDON -- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice called Iraq's Saddam Hussein an "evil man" in a broadcast interview Thursday, saying he would wreak havoc on the world if the West does nothing to stop him.

AP report 8.15.02

Dear Saddam,

We're coming. We're just about to invade. Soon. Extremely soon. Brace yourself. Really. Here's a line in the sand. Dare you to cross it. Whoa. Here's another line in the sand.

We're planning. Our plans are almost set. We're assembling the alliance. Haven't you, like the rest of the world, read our furious leaks to the press? We'll be coming from three sides. Three sides.

Wait! Did I say three sides? Just kidding. But don't turn your back on Kurdistan. We're meeting with opposition leaders. We're arming them right now. We're setting up a government in exile. We'll be attacking from Turkey, from Saudi Arabia (ignore the government of Saudi Arabia, which says it won't help), from the Gulf.

As soon as we roll through Baghdad we will be welcomed by your oppressed people as liberators of your paltry nation.

But first, we need to pause. To reflect. And above all, to insult you. We're taking to the airwaves every day and we're going to call you names. Nanny nanny boober. You're stupid. You look foreign. You're bad and evil and an insane dictator. Your mother eats jello, do you hear? Jello. Your last name rhymes with insane!

We've got you where we want you now. You're on TV, like Tonya Harding and the Long Island Lolita, like Patsy Ramsey and O.J. Simpson, like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. We really, really dislike you intensely.

I know what you're telling yourself, Saddam. You're saying that if it takes us a year to plan an invasion, our military must be kinda massively clumsy and inefficient. You're saying that if we haven't assembled an alliance yet, we're not going to. You're saying that we don't have the resolve. You're saying that we're talking non-stop smack and we should shut up before you slap us silly.

But we are the greatest people on earth, with the mightiest military ever assembled. And you are simply a two-bit tin-pot dictator. But though you are pathetically, laughably ineffectual and totally isolated, we will do whatever it takes to keep you from destroying the world in your madness. We will hurt your feelings you with our mighty invective. We will hurl maledictions at you from every 24-hour cable news operation in Atlanta. We are angry, we are deadly and we're coming. Really, we're almost there.

You can never intimidate a free people, Saddam. We will destroy you. We're attacking from three sides.

Did I say three sides?

Saddam, allow us to inspect your weapons of mass destruction. Defy us at your peril. If you don't immediately comply with all international agreements, especially those we ourselves have rejected, we will have to take action. Real, severe action.

Pull back from the brink. Don't make me take the ultimate step: don't make me deploy Condi Rice to insult you again on C-SPAN.

Yo mama, Saddam.

Sincerely,

The President of the United States