(The following strange note from the underground — the second purporting to be from dead Soviet leader J.V. Stalin — arrived today via a Norwegian diplomatic courier. The original document was traced faintly in nearly indecipherable Cyrillic cursive on what appears the paper roll for a seismograph. A transliteration was included as well, apparently carboned on a smudgy manual typewriter.)

TO WHOM IT CONCERNS: Please Deliver to

HIS EXCELLENCY SADDAM HUSSEIN, PRESIDENT, REPUBLIC OF IRAQ

Dear Saddam,

It is your dear Uncle Koba again. How well you are doing! We watch a lot of Fox News down here, as you might imagine. We have a special arrangement with Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps someday soon you’ll get to meet him.

The imperialists have blundered! I watched their tinker toy army launch itself deep into your territory. What fools — oh had they been in charge of the Wehrmacht 60 years ago. To send their panzers in with nothing behind them! Where were the strategic encirclements? Lines of supply? Flanks? Rear security? They are so impressed that they have advanced 300 miles to Kerbala - through empty desert. Let them have their desert and choke on the dust.

Not since Barbarossa, too, has an army invaded another nation with less grasp on reality. Met with flowers? No, my dear boy, you learned at my knee. The common Shia peasants are fighting for you with a pistol to their head. Round up the children, fight in civilian clothes, shoot anyone who speaks out, and morale is maintained! The people discover their patriotism at the end of the whip. Sending them out in taxi cabs and pickup truck to attack tanks - well now, that will impress the world.

You are winning the propoganda war as well. I was worried that you would miss the chance to use chemical weapons but I can say your reserve has served you well. The allies have committed all the atrocities: now look what they have made you do! The whores made you cut off water and power to Basra, and they’ve stopped food shipments and set to a medieval siege. People will starve, riots will fill the streets. You will be forced to massacre civilians! Those British bastards, bringing you to this!

I read too that your patriots hung a woman for smiling at the Americans as they passed in Um Qasr. Those Americans! Don’t they know morale must be maintained, no exceptions? They killed her, not you, although you had to do the dirty work!

The world watches, and the world sees this clearly. As the regular people die in the streets of every city and every town they will say you are not to blame. Keep them there in the cities with you — their blood will annoint your victory. The very people who should despise you most - the democratic lovers of peace, the bleeding heart UNESCO postcard bourgeois — will howl for the American President’s head.

We are eagerly awaiting Bush as well down here. He does the devil’s work so very well.

Stay the course, dear boy, and spare none of your people’s blood. The question always is not how many must survive this war, but how few.

As always,

Your Dear Uncle Koba

J.V. Stalin

PS: Use a biological or chemical weapon soon! We are always so disappointed when we turn off the TV each night!