FRONT-PORCH INTERVIEWER: Why haven’t we caught bin Laden?

DON RUMSFELD: I suspect it’s because he has more hiding places than a cat has whiskers. And he knows each one of them like a cat knows the inside of its litter box, a-yup, a-yup.  

FPI : Didn’t anyone mention to you that an insurgency would rise up in Iraq?

DR: Golly gee-whiz, the subject didn’t come up at all. It just was not mentioned, honor bright. Sometimes my advisors are about as smart as a box of hammers.

FPI: Is it possible to negotiate with the insurgents?

DR: (*Takes out capacious red bandanna and wipes his forehead in the hot sun*): Goodness gracious, no!  Dealing with them is like skinny dipping with snapping turtles! They cut off peoples’ heads, for heaven’s sake! They’ve planted more IED’s along the roads than Carter has liver pills!

FPI: Who bears responsibility for Abu Ghraib?

DR: I would say, after looking at it from all sides, that ultimately the nature of war is to blame. Bad things happen in war. Those extremists aren’t baking cookies over there, you know. Pshaw!

FPI: Why do some of our military vehicles still lack armor?

DR: You know, and I know, that an unarmored Humvee in combat is about as useful as a pail under a bull. But it all has to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We can’t know how many fully-armored Humvees are being produced, and where they are most needed, at the same time. Lord-a-mercy, it’s asking the impossible, according to physics, to rectify that situation fully.  

FPI: Will this administration, in its second term, realize its goals in Iraq?

DR: I hope so, the good Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise. We’re doing everything we can to get shut of those insurgents before the whole country goes kitty whompus on us.  

FPI: What do you tell a soldier who is forced to serve extra time in Iraq because of the military’s ‘stop-loss’ policy?

DR: Let me tell you an interesting story. I was eating breakfast in the Green Zone with a Sergeant Carter, who was just back from the Fallujah cleanup operation. I said, ‘Gol-lee Sergeant Carter! Here’s an Iraqi spider big as my hand beside my plate of grits this morning.’ And you know what the Sergeant did? He ordered a 19-year-old infantryman to run the creature through with his bayonet. The soldier did, too, quick as a hog eats its lunch. What I’m saying is, morale is just incredibly high, and the ‘stop-loss’ policy isn’t affecting it.  

FPI: Is there going to be anything left of Iraq to rebuild?

DR: Land sakes alive, parts of Iraq are fine and don’t even need rebuilding. Other parts, I admit, are not so fortunate. Lackaday. But at the very least there’ll be a foundation of democracy and freedom to build on. Before you know it, a new Iraqi government will be up and running like a scalded squirrel. It fries my tater to hear folks say it can’t happen.

FPI: If the Iraqi elections take place in January, will our troops come home then?

DR:  If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas. Don’t count on it.

FPI: Are you the most mealy-mouthed, vacant-minded neocon in the administration?

DR: (*Takes out a plug of chewing tobacco and bites off a wad*): Certainly the belief in that idea has grown throughout the Iraqi conflict. In fact I was talking to Mrs. Rumsfeld the other day about that very question. You don’t know what a swell old gal the Mrs. is. But she said, ‘Rummy,’—she calls me Rummy, ya know—‘Rummy, if there’s a bigger moron in the administration than you, I hope they find him and execute him quick.’ Anyway that’s all the time I have. You’ve been a real—Oh, what’s the word I want?—batch of chicken shit. (*Spits tobacco juice at the FRONT-PORCH INTERVIEWER*)