Bush Finds Iraq Exit Strategy in Crawford Dungarees

Washington, D.C., December 22, 2005 -- President Bush startled lawmakers and reporters yesterday by announcing that he had found his Iraq exit strategy in the back pocket of a pair of dungarees the president normally uses while working off steam by clearing brush on his Crawford, Texas estate.

Bush's Iraq Exit Strategy

The announcement came as a great relief to most Americans, who have lately been growing increasingly concerned by the Iraq engagement's inexorable evolution into a painful quagmire from which there appears to be little or no hope of escape.

President Bush reportedly stumbled on the exit strategy while performing an informal audit of the contents of much of his wardrobe, a search sparked by a reporter's recent query as to the contents of his pockets. At that time, the president was found to have nothing at all in his pockets with the exception of a single, white, perfumed handkerchief containing the embroidered words, "Love Always, ExxonMobil".

"I just started getting a little curious about what I had in any of my other pockets, like if I maybe forgot some keys or spare change in there or something," said President Bush. "And so I started looking. I already found a chapstick, a couple of Enron pens, a few thousand Al Gore ballots from Florida – kept them as souvenirs, I guess -- and was about done looking when I thought I'd take a look at the dungarees."

Although President Bush performed the pocket search within the White House, his Crawford estate dungarees were nonetheless available to him due to the fact that the president's entire wardrobe, which includes flight suits, fireman's helmets, a latex "compassionate face" and other familiar costumes, routinely travels with him on vacation and back again along with his staff, selected reporters and a coterie of top lobbyists.

"So anyway, there I was looking through the dungarees – who knows, thought I might find a quarter or something I could use in the Lincoln Bedroom vibrating bed – and there was the exit strategy right there," President Bush elaborated.

Unfortunately, the prized document, which is hoped by many to provide both an explanation for the bewildering conflict that has thus far led to the deaths of over two thousand American soldiers and over ten times that many Iraqi civilians, as well as a means by which the United States may extricate itself from the region without causing or incurring further damage, had been run through the White House laundry at least once.

"Yep, it's done faded and all," said a disappointed Bush. "I can tell there was writing on it, 'cause I wrote the part at the top in undubbable—indelibubble. In the kind of marker you can't erase, can hold up to the laundry cycle. Says "IRAQ EXIT STRATEGY" right there. But most of the rest of it's washed right out."

Forensic experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are now examining the document in the hope that the faded text of the exit strategy may be reconstructed from fibers of the paper, which appears to be a receipt for an adult film entitled "Back Door Draft" from a video rental establishment.

"With any luck, we should be able to reconstitute at least 30-50% of the text," said William Perkins, a forensic specialist with the FBI. "I don't know if that's going to be enough to actually get the United States out of there, or whether whatever the strategy was still applies given changing circumstances in the country, but it should at least give us the gist of the plan."

President Bush, however, was less sanguine regarding the chances of the document's recovery.

"They're real smart guys, and they work real hard, but I'm not so sure they're going to be able to figure out all what it says on there. Probably take a couple years, if they can do it at all. And that's okay. We'll just keep building new military bases and sending our boys and girls over there until the FBI can get it all figured out."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor