After billions of dollars spent, we got Saddam. For a few days we felt relieved. For all we knew, a couple more weeks down the road and Saddam might have surfaced in lower Manhattan, pushing a homeless grocery cart, his bags packed for the pilgrimage to terrorist Mecca. According to Saddam Hussein, he, Saddam was still the president of Iraq, so how come no one read Saddam his Miranda rights?

But imagine Saddam alive, the war winner and over here, astride a khaki scud, riding down Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick's Day, an A-bomb under one arm and in his other, a crock brim full with enough bio-poison to obliterate the whole east coast. We'd have all been body-bagged.

Surplus body bags are out there. Before we went to war this time around our brass placed orders for an extra nine thousand human duffels at $38 bucks a pop. Those body bags sure are great for rigging a rainproof back yard hammock, hauling a double load of dirty laundry, or keeping your compost dry.

But recollect for a moment those Iraqi kids from twelve years back, cross haired by Saddam's death squads, or turned into smart rock fodder by our guys. Didn't they have mothers and fathers, too, loved ones waiting at home? Why did our first president Bush skip over those fifty thousand dead Iraqis scattered around in freshly plowed berms, until storm winds blew a leg sand clean for a fly feed, or scorpion's dessert? Surely those kids, too, were well worth $38 bucks a duffel.

(Send me to Washington!)

Only the innocent are called to Allah's bosom. But for their families here on the earth we could have bagged and tagged the first fifty thousand bodies found on the ground whilst they were still identifiable. Captured Iraqi GI's could have dug grave rows for the decimated shells of their brother's battered souls. Oh! What great and lasting scenery for Armageddon, The Movie. We could have seen to it their ID papers were laminated and attached beneath a Crescent marker, the commonest of respect for the dead on behalf of the living.

Sure those poor Iraqi kids from the first Desert Storm, like you, and me, had mothers and fathers, too; family in Baghdad, or some small Iraqi town, waiting and praying with all their near broken hearts, wondering the whereabouts of their poor conscripted sons, hoping they're only missing in action, secretly relocated, unable to telephone, washing dishes alone in a Kuwaiti restaurant, a part of King George the Elder's New World Hors D'oeuvres. Is it any wonder so many Iraqis hate us?

It turns out Saddam, that merciless Lion of the Tigris was just a fraidy cat; just a raggedy old man with fear in his eyes and a suitcase loaded with cash. But had Saddam won the war he might have opted to become our Commander-in-Chief. Then all those Wall Street Gurgle readers driving Mercedes would've had to give up their cars because Mercedes Benz was Saddam Hussein's semiofficial Fourth Estate government ride. The Gurgle group would all be driving Saddam Deville.

Congress would be reconvening in Saddamington, Pennsylvania Ave. renamed Saddam Blvd., and during Saddam's yearly State of Saddamy speech, all our elected officials would respond to his sound bites with laudatory cheers. Saddam golf balls - thwack - would be outlawed, but Saddam cigarette lighters - guaranteed to blow up in the face of your enemy - (his backfired) would still be around.

Saddam face-up on a twenty-dollar Saddam peso? Saddammy Mommy on a fifty? Saddam's cousin, chemical Ali Hassan on a five spot? Why not? People don't even bother picking Abe up off the ground anymore. Wanna slurpie? Saddam-11. Cheeseburger? Saddam-King, Home of the Chopper. The TV ad would show the truck's tailgate slamming, and the deep over voice would proclaim, "Saddam Tough!" Shuwop bop a loo bah - Saddam bang boom! And anyone who didn't like Saddam's patriotic acts would have been hauled off to the Hussein Asylum.

Regardless, the real reason for getting Saddam is out there, as president Bush ad libbed to the press upon Hussein's capture, "I've got my own personal views on how Saddam should be treated." So all that annihilation and ongoing death began, didn't we know it from the start, as a family affair, King George's personal pay back to Saddam Hussein for taking a pot shot at his dad, redemption for the on-the-wagon son made president, the treasure of our patriotic youth risked-in-full to redeem his father's legacy. Anyone this war has truly touched will cast their ballot elsewhere. We support the presidency, not this president.

Relative to Saddam, he wasn't qualified for "Trial of the century" housing at the Geneva Convention either, because Saddam had never been to Geneva. Saddam should have been made to appear at the Kurdish Convention, with his rights guaranteed by the Code of Hammurabi. As soon as it got to be summer, Saddam should have been brought to Halabja, that Kurdish town Saddam gassed years ago; then staked in the OK Corral town square wearing only Bermuda shorts.

All the women and children throughout Iraq whose loved ones were murdered by Saddam's henchmen could have been invited to come there, too, with transportation provided by us for their visit. I'd have issued the women and children a souvenir shoe, each with a very sharp nail slightly protruding the heel and single filed them through the metal detectors so each of the mothers could have slapped Saddam with their souvenir Saddam leather. A plastic shield would have protected Saddam Hussein's face.

But from those very sharp nails barely protruding the heels of each shoe, only effective from a solid slap, the man who hated Jews, flies, and Iranians would have received his due. By the brutal afternoon, Saddam would have been sufficiently skin-popped and welted, with every available inch on his body graced by his own squashed blood. Film director Mel Gibson could have documented The Passion of Saddam. Flies would have done the rest. All the oily Iraqi flies would've been Sadamm full.

We could have avoided the first Gulf War. When Saddam started rattling his sword at Kuwait, Bush the Elder could have invited him here for a state visit, gone cheek to cheek in the Oval Office for the world to see, and then behind closed doors read Saddam the Riot Act, relative to his Kuwaiti neighbors. Instead, thousands of innocent people died in the first Gulf War. Desert Storm's legacy, an oil for food sham program let Saddam play the loot and semi-retire to write romantic novels.

So why didn't we translate his muck, put him on our best sellers lists and had Saddam over for a Barnes & Noble book tour. Then we could have quietly cut him a lifetime deal: We get the oil. Saddam gets Montana. Halliburton pumps.

With my Exit Strategy Out of Iraq I see a way we can clearly trap the Qaeda terrorists, extricate our forces and turn the independent Iraqis into our 2nd strongest democratic ally in the region. My plan leads to total communication and world peace. Does any other candidate for president have an Exit Strategy they can articulate?

I seek the nomination of both political parties, so we present to the world a united face, the first step toward my coming natch a rill that will suffice as world peace, beginning with a peaceful night, when all the world's peoples will be doing the same thing at the same time: watching my whirled wide sprechen on TV. I promise in advance, to spout a delicate sensible, mull tie ling well rhyme, in every line, so all on the planet, our good ship mother earth, feel they are participants.

You have a choice: world peace or smoke and mirrors.

Michael Stephen Levinson