Relieved Army Sheds Flippers, Scuba Gear, Water Wings

On Sunday talk shows yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid reassured the American people that the insurgency will not push U.S. forces into the sea, because Iraq is landlocked, they asserted.

"So we continue to discount the sea contingency, although we cannot make assurances against the 'pushed into neighboring Turkey' contigency," said Rumsfeld.

The insurgency, which is in its "death throes," according to Rumsfeld, "may still linger on into the next century." He said that Americans should be reassured, however, because U.S. forces would either be pushed out or voluntarily withdrawn long before then.

"The U.S. Army is the best equipped, best trained, most deadly fighting force in the world," said Rumsfeld. "That having been said, if the insurgency isn't gone within the next couple of years, we'll leave it to the marginally equipped, moderately trained Iraqi army to finish the job."

Referring to a pocket dictionary that he apparently wrote himself, Rumsfeld described leaving Iraq with an increasingly adept and well-armed enemy utterly destroying the security of that nation as an "enormous success," a "great victory," and a "model of democratic transformation."