My, could that be smoke creeping from beneath the doors of both the White House and Number 10, Downing Street? I think it could well be.   You know what they say, “There’s no smoke without fire.”

Well, with Gulf War 2 now making the rounds of Barnes and Noble and eBay, how’s it going over there? According to the hawks in Washington and London, it’s all over but the looting--oh, sorry, that should be “shooting.” Peace and stability have returned to the streets of Baghdad. The people continue to rejoice at the thought of food shortages, sporadic utility services, rising crime, and let’s not forget the overzealous trigger fingers of the “liberating forces.”  

Isn’t democracy GRRRREAT??!!! You tell 'em, Tony, our British Tiger.

But there is still one little fly in the ointment of George and Tony’s world vision plan.

Now, children, for extra credit, can you tell teacher what that fly may be?

Correct, everybody. They still haven’t found the whole reason we went to war in the first place: nasty Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction!

“And why not?” I can hear you ask in amazement. Could it be that perhaps there aren’t any?

Well now, that begs the question of what happened to all that “conclusive proof” that was bandied about by both the Bush Administration and Tony’s Cronies prior to invading Iraq.

Granted, some horrible and ghastly secrets have been discovered since Saddam took an extended break in some nearby sunny clime. But these discoveries haven’t told us where the WMDs are--or why we’re having such a hard time finding them. Good grief, the allies have already captured all the scientists in charge, give or take a couple. Shouldn’t the CIA’s legendary powers of persuasion have at least got them talking about their childhood phobias?

As a result of our failure to find WMDs, there is a fire brewing in certain houses of government, and it doesn’t show any signs of abating.  People are looking for answers to their questions, and the spin is on.

I think the one guy who I feel truly sorry for is Colin Powell, who before hostilities broke out was at the UN with his heart on his sleeve, trying to convince a very skeptical world that Saddam was the devil incarnate.  Now here he is a few months later, trying desperately to shield his boss from all the flak--worse than Baghdad on a starry night. 

Time is running out for someone, and you can bet the mortgage payment there’s a sword of Damocles hanging over somebody’s head.

Chop, chop.