We all know who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, don't we? No,
not Osama bin Laden. God, that is so last year. It never turns
out to be the person you first suspect. It was Saddam Hussein.
For some reason we couldn't find him when we went after him in
Afghanistan, bringing that magic elixir of regime change along
with us. But now we've got a better idea: track him down where he
actually lives, in Baghdad, and punish him right in his own
backyard. It's the only way to obtain justice for the thousands
he killed on 9/11.

At least that's the way the White House is now pitching the
story.

In this latest rewrite of history, Osama has suddenly lost his
beard and grown a mustache, morphing into the Butcher of Baghdad
-- or one of the look-alike stand-ins Saddam has been using for
public appearances since 1998.

"You can't distinguish between Al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk
about the war on terror," said President Bush in the Oval Office
last week.

Really? He can't differentiate between a group of evil
ultra-radical Islamic fundamentalists that carried out the Sept.
11 attacks and an evil secular nationalist who, despite the
frantic efforts of the Bush administration, has not been directly
linked to 9/11? He'd better start making such distinctions -- and
fast. When every expert who knows anything about the Mideast can
distinguish between the two, is it too much to ask that a
President who's ready to go to war look a bit more closely?

People under stress often regress to earlier stages of
development. It appears that Bush is so intent on getting Saddam,
so obsessively tightly gripped by a need to succeed where his war
hero dad failed, so obsessively determined to lay the murderous
9/11 assault at Baghdad's door, that he's regressed to that level
of childhood development where fantasy, reality and wish
fulfillment are all mixed up. Except that this time, things like
nuclear weapons and the safety of the world for the next few
decades are involved.

Now, I'm no psychologist, but I believe there is a clinical term
for this condition: going off the deep end.

How else to explain the president's bizarre response to a reporter's
straightforward query last week about who poses a bigger threat
to America, Saddam or Al-Qaeda?

"That's an interesting question," he replied. "I'm trying to
think of something humorous to say but I can't when I think about
Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."

When did the president take over the "Tonight Show?" Why would the
idea that he should make a joke about such a deadly serious subject
even cross his mind? It would be like asking Danielle van Dam's
parents about the trial of their daughter's murderer and having them
apologize for not being ready with a humorous quip.

No, Mr. President, you needn't apologize -- your inability to treat
serious subjects lightly is not one of your deficiencies. So rather
than struggling to come up with a wan witticism, why don't you just
answer the question? Especially since it appears by your actions that
you've already come up with one.

Instead of bothering to give the least defense of his sudden
fusion of Saddam and Osama, Bush launched into a fantasy-fueled
diatribe: "The danger is, is that they work in concert. The
danger is, is that Al-Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's
madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass
destruction around the world."

The president's regressed condition is spreading like the West Nile
virus throughout the West Wing and beyond.

Witness the symptomatic blurring of fact and fantasy exhibited by
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When asked at an Armed Services
Committee hearing about what is now compelling us to "take
precipitous actions" against Iraq, Rumsfeld barked: "What's
different? What's different is 3,000 people were killed." Yeah, by
Mohammed Atta and company -- not Saddam Hussein. By why quibble over
details when there is a propaganda war to be won?

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice continued the assault
on reality when she vaguely yet ominously claimed: "There clearly
are contacts between Al-Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented."
Well, then why not document them? We've documented contacts
between Al-Qaeda and our oil dealers in Saudi Arabia and Al-Qaeda
and our new best friends in Pakistan. But I don't see any B-2s
powering up for raids over Riyadh or Karachi.

As is the White House custom, Rice simply refused to back up her
claims. So did Rumsfeld, who memorably rebuffed a reporter late
last week by saying, "That happens to be a piece of intelligence
that either we don't have or we don't want to talk about." In
other words: Proof? We don't need no stinking proof! And just
because I'm asking your sons and daughters to possibly sacrifice
their lives for it doesn't mean you deserve to know whether it even
exists.

It would be nice if we could just take them all at their word and
let the bombs fall where they may. But Sen. Bob Graham, who, as
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is privy to the
inside scoop, says he's seen no evidence of any link between
Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

So we're left with the fevered, infantile imaginings of the
president and his pals. "We had dots before," said Anna Perez,
Rice's spokeswoman. "Now we have a higher density of dots. Have
we connected those dots? No."

Perhaps the president should put down his saber-rattle, pick up
his crayons and connect them before drawing us into a bloody war.

------
If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at
arianna@ariannaonline.com.

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