Victory in Iraq is just a declaration away

You know the old saying: When the cat's away the mice will play. Well, President Bush is currently tied up on vacation in Crawford. However, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney have been meeting here at the White House quite a bit.

From what I can tell from some torn-up notes I found in the wastepaper basket, the War in Iraq is almost over. Hooray!!!

With the recent increase in marine casualties and insurgency attacks, I was personally concerned the war might go on for another 12 years as Secretary Rumsfeld predicted a while back.

But from what I read, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney are recommending to the President to simply declare victory and pull the troops out.

There's no downside.

The Democrat-Liberals won't object because they never wanted America bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq in the first place. And Republicans will be as happy as flies on a turd blossom knowing that America stood up to tyrrany and defeated it. The families of dead American soldiers can rest easy knowing their sons and daughters did not die in vain. And the Iraqis...well they're free. They've already had an election. What more could they want?

There was one cryptic remark in Mr. Cheney's handwriting. "Civil war?"

But I figure that's the beauty of democracy and freedom. The Iraqis should have the freedom to have a civil war if they want. America had one and we became the richest country in the world (although I believe if the South had won, our labor costs would be a lot lower now).

Although Congress must approve wars, it turns out the President doesn't need Congress to declare victory.

So this is how things are likely to play out.

Remember how the first President George Bush waited a while, and let the first Iraqi war go exactly 100 hours before declaring victory. Historically, a 100-Hours War has a real nice ring to it. And it's easy for future American students to study the war in high school. (The whole Bush clan is real thoughtful and considerate.)

Of course, the first President Bush declared victory and left Saddam Hussein in power thinking Saddam wouldn't spend every minute building up weapons of mass destruction. And as we all know, this is the mistake that led to our current war in Iraq to free the people and bring them democracy. If the first President Bush had gotten rid of Saddam, we wouldn't have had to give a darn if those Iraqis were free or not. They'd be just regular Arabs like Saudis and we sure as heck don't want those folks getting democracy and wrecking our oil relationship with the House of Saud.

Anyway, according to the Cheney-Rumsfeld notes, our current President George Bush is going to let the War in Iraq run for exactly 1,000 days, which makes for a nice, round number.

On December 14, 2005, President Bush will declare victory in Iraq ensuring that Iraq's Muslims will get to enjoy Christmas, worship Jesus Christ and exchange gifts with no more war in their backyards.

I'll bet Christmas in Baghdad will really be beautiful this year.