400 British troops in the desert with their new camoflage

The US of A has finally admitted that maybe three days was ‘a bit optimistic’ as an estimate of the length of the Iraq crisis. “But everything is going to plan,” said Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was the man who made the ridiculously short predictions in the first place.

“What with the clocks going forward, we’ve lost an hour’s valuable invasion time,” said Rumsfeld in an address to the World yesterday, “But otherwise, everything is going to plan. I think that hour we lost fully explains why we haven’t captured Baghdad and ousted Hussein yet.”

Colin Powell also denied allegations that the US were making announcements early, for example announcing the capture of Basra, Saddam International Airport, Baghdad and North Korea. “We are working to a very strictly flexible timeline,” he explained, “Which allows us to do whatever the Hell we like. We announce what we want, when we want. The Iraqi military reports in much the same way, so it’s only fair!”

The US is also desperate to unearth some evidence of the Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’, which have so far eluded detection. Recent tests of boxes of white powder found in central Iraq later turned out, rather embarrassingly, to be a thousand tonnes of flour brought as food aid by the British. The Americans have also discovered some dried milk powder, a cup of sugar borrowed from Kuwait, and a veritable shedload of sand.

For all the moaning, however, the US advance has been nothing if not rapid. It has taken a mere two weeks to get half of the US Army completely isolated in the middle of enemy territory with no supply lines. This kind of high speed isn’t bad, considering it took them six months to fail to get a UN resolution and decide to flout international law.

The British Army, on the other hand, has not yet been accused of making any real mistakes. Largely because General Franks has put them on “Following the USA and sorting out all the Iraqis we miss” duty, with special powers to “look less like an invading force, because we’re damned if we’re going to get out of our tanks to talk to these Goddamn Heathens. Sorry, these Goddamn oppressed masses.”

The invasion continues even as Passenger goes to press, still unstoppable despite sandstorms, occasional Iraqi gunfire and widespread international opposition. It is now almost certain that the war will soon be over, and the abysmal mess that is the aftermath be well underway by Easter.