DanMargarita.com

Over a month ago the United States started a war that the president said was to keep the peace and disarm the Iraqi regime of weapons that it has yet to prove that the Iraqi's possessed. It is certainly possible that the cretin known as Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons, since he is known to have used them previously, but none were discovered by Hans Blix, who is the head of the U.N. weapons inspection team and that body's answer to Col. Klink.

"Sadaaaam! Where are those weapons of mass destruction?! Hmmmmmph!"

The bulk of the fighting seems to have come to an end and we've been provided with images of Iraqi civilians looting and looking like those crazed shoppers barging through the door of Filene's Basement during their annual Christmas sale.

Years of U.N. sanctions, plus Hussein's greed in hording supplies meant for Iraqi citizens have resulted in the average Iraqi having nothing. With the regime in tatters, the citizens of the country seem determined to take back what they were deprived of. Judging by what we've seen on TV, the Hussein regime had been denying the Iraqi people one thing in particular----furniture.

Constant shots of people wheeling desks, couches, TV's, filing cabinets and chairs out of buildings are being shown on the daily TV news. With such an apparent desperate need for furniture and an increased focus on homeland security, Bernie and Phil had better put armed guards at the doors of their furniture stores.

One image showed a boy carrying a vase large and expensive looking enough to be pronounced "vaaaz."

Another was of an enterprising gentleman who decided that what he was owed by the regime was a city bus. He used his crane to try to confiscate the bus, but it proved too unwieldy to maneuver. Suppose he had gotten away with it. What would he possibly do with a bus? Bus pool the kids to school?

After order is restored, if civil authorities try to recover government property it will be difficult to retrieve certain items. That lamp in someone's house might be government property or it might've been bought at a street bazaar. Go ahead and prove I stole it. A bus will be a little tougher to hide.

"Uh..my grandfather left me this bus in his will, officer."

Many museums and libraries were looted of priceless and irreplaceable artifacts.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has characterized the situation as "untidiness."

I guess he would define the pillages of Attila the Hun as "downright unkempt."

The U.S. forces are still pursuing members of the Iraqi regime, going so far as to provide soldiers with a deck of cards with the Most Wanted Baath Party members' pictures printed on them. The troops can then familiarize themselves with their likenesses while playing solitaire.

"The red Defense Minister goes on the black Interior Minister."

With 55 cards in the deck, I'm assuming there are three jokers, or "court jesters."

One man who was highly visible to the world and is not in the deck of cards is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Minister of Information, who staunchly refuted the presence of U.S. troops in Baghdad, all the while coalition forces guns boomed in the near distance.

I suspect his next post might be "The Minister of Denial."

Indeed, the U.S. believes that they have killed Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas to massacre as many as 100,000 Kurds.

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" was pretty bad karma, for "Chemical Ali."

Last week Special Forces raided the home of Rihab Taha, the head of Iraq's microbiology unit, also know by the nickname &"Dr. Germ."

There are many more top level officials being hunted, but I suspect that Chemical Ali and Dr. Germ represent the highest ranking James Bond villains in the Baath Party.

Restless citizens are getting impatient and angry with the U.S. while they desperately wait for running water and electricity to be restored.

Perhaps we should make sure we also give them a matching carpet and drapes.