Barring an economic (or North Korean) meltdown, Washington is going to invade Iraq.

I refuse to call it a war because it's not going to be a war. It's much too one-sided for that. From the latest issue of THIS Magazine (Jan/Feb 03), here are some factoids about the last Gulf "War":

the American-led ground blitz in Jan '91 lasted 100 hours

the number of Iraqi Army, estimated once as being the 4th largest world with a force of 610,000 troops, is revised to 183,000 after the fact

Iraqi dead is estimated as 120,000 with at least 15,000 being civilians; this outnumbers Allied dead 343 to 1

nearly one in four American casualties were killed by their own forces

So let's not call the unsavoury events ahead of us as a 'War Against Iraq". I'm thinking of something along the lines of "Slumberparty in Iraq" instead. Slumberparty!