It's been rather embarrassing for America the last few months. We said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but all we've found since we stopped bombing that country is a couple of empty vans. This week, our Secretary of State (Colin Powell) assured citizens these vans couldn't be anything other than transportation for chemical weapons. Vans like these could not be used for anything else. Why else would anyone have vans?

This is a good question. My first response, just from my background, would be "what about all the Iraqi rock bands?" I'm sure they'd need vans to get to their gigs. Iraq isn't big, but it's probably kind of hard to get gigs really close to your rehearsal space.

Of course, I'm just kidding about the rock band thing. There aren't any Iraqi rock bands. There's nowhere for them to play. We blew up everything.

But I figured I'd help my country out. I know our country has weapons of mass destruction. We have more weapons of mass destruction than any other country in the world. We have WMDs about fifteen miles from where I live. Buried in the mountains called Manzano. I can't go and check this out because if I try to scale the really high fences, the nice people hiding the weapons will shoot me.

So the theory is this: If I can't find WMDs easily here in the US--and we have more WMDs than anyone--then it makes perfect sense that we can't find any WMDs in Iraq. I want to make people like my country again.

So I got a shovel and started digging. My backyard is kind of barren, just like Iraq. Maybe there's something back there? I needed the exercise anyway. About a foot down, the ground got really hard. It hasn't rained much (although it has rained a little) lately--this unsoftened earth is a bit hard to move. So I just moved about ten feet over and began a new hole. We couldn't have buried stuff very deep, that would take big machinery. I would have noticed if a bulldozer was digging in my backyard.

I dug about five holes before giving up. Apparently my backyard is not bristling with evidence. I had to try, though. For my country. Maybe my backyard just wasn't accessible to the military. Maybe I needed to widen my search. I began to go door to door in my neighborhood.

"Hi ma'am. I live a few houses down, and I've been searching for weapons of mass destruction. Would you like me to clear your backyard? Make sure nothing is hidden back there? This service is free of charge."

It's amazing how many people will let you do what you want when you tell them you'll do it for free.

I gave green clearance ribbons to the first three houses I checked. After digging randomly selected areas of their backyard, I was unable to find anything.

At the fourth house, the college girls who were renting the place followed me out to the backyard. They brought chairs to casually observe in and beers to drink. I dug one hole, found nothing and wiped my forehead.

"Hey, you should check over here," one of the girls said, grinning. "You don't even need your shovel."

This house took me the rest of the afternoon. There were so many places to check! The girls wanted me to be very thorough. Unfortunately for America, we found nothing. Not for lack of trying, of course. Who says college kids don't care about foreign policy these days?

The next day I set out once again, determined not to be sidetracked by obvious dead ends. In one backyard, I found a cache of buried little plastic green army men. Obviously casualties from an earlier war. I suggested they send the remains to the tomb of the unknown soldier. In another backyard, I found the remains of a rabbit named Fluffy who had died a few months back after a bout with an intestinal parasite. One backyard held a jar of pennies, which excited the young boy who lived there. It did not, however, constitute a WMD. I'm pretty sure only one person would be hurt if hit by the jar.

By the end of the second day, my hands were covered with blisters, and I'd found nothing. I'd proved my theory right, at least on a small scale. It's really hard to find WMDs, even when you know there are some around somewhere.

So I hope everyone backs off the Prez and his cronies. I looked really hard and didn't find anything at all. Obviously Iraq is a much bigger place than my neighborhood, and if they can't find WMDs there, we just have to give them more time. Y'know, like the UN weapons inspectors were saying before we kicked them out of Iraq and bombed the holy shit out of anything that wriggled. I can even write a report the administration can use. I can put in graphs and pictures to illustrate the lack WMDs in my own neighborhood.

I love my country, and I want us all to feel better about ourselves--despite our inability to find big ass missiles festooned with "Fuck Bush" written in Arabic lying in the middle of the desert.

Matt Worley can be a little silly at times.