iraq and kuwait

If I was Iraq — and thank heavens I’m not — I don’t think I’d pick now as the time to start launching mortars across the border into Kuwait. (A story that isn’t getting much attention today, thanks to that small matter of another plane crashing in New York.)
Let’s see: ever since 9/11, there’s been a huge debate in the administration over whether or not to make the War Against Terror a War Against Saddam and let Bush fils finish what Bush pere did not. For the moment, the Wolfowitz kill-Iraq wing seems to have lost the debate. If I’m Saddam, I’m on my best behavior right about now. But then again, I’m not a megalomaniacal dictator, so maybe I’m missing something. (Attention ex-girlfriends: it is neither the time nor place to comment on my megalomania.)
Plus, you’ve got to love any wire story with a sentence like this: “[UN spokesman] Bagga said Kuwaiti border police have also complained that 15 minutes before the mortar firing, two Iraqis ‘in khakis’ were spotted firing several rounds from a Kalashnikov in the direction of the Kuwaiti border.” Iraqis in khakis. Is Halloween already over? ‘Cause I’ve got a costume idea.