Here's the text of Iraq's letter accepting (how gracious of them) the resumption of UN weapons inspections under the new resolution.

Here's the first sentence:

You may recall the huge clamor fabricated by the President of the United States administration, in the biggest and most wicked slander against Iraq, supported in malicious intent, and spearheaded in word and malevolence, by his lackey Tony Blair, when they disseminated the claim that Iraq has perhaps produced, or was on its way to produce, nuclear weapons, during the time when the United Nations inspectors had been absent from Iraq since 1998.

Ah, the dulcid poetry of diplomatic discourse!

Maybe something's lost in the translation. Then again, maybe not.

But wait, there's more. Here are some highlights:

Indeed, is there any good to be hoped for, or expected, from the American administrations, now that they have been transformed by their own greed, by Zionism as well as by other known factors, into the tyrant of the age.

Well, at least it's not entirely our fault. We've just succumbed to the evil machinations of the Jews. Now it all makes sense.

We have said to the members of the Security Council whom we have contacted, or who have contacted us, when they told us about the pretexts of the Americans and their threat to perpetrate aggression against our country, whether unilaterally or with participation from others, if the Council were not to allow them to have their way, that we preferred, if it ever became necessary to see America carry out its aggressions against us unilaterally, when we would have to confront it relying on Allah, instead of seeing the American government obtaining an international cover with which to camouflage its falsehood, partially or completely, bringing it closer to the truth, so that it may stab the truth with the dagger of evil and confronted the United States before when it looked as it does now, and this was one of the factors of its isolation in the human environment on the globe at large.

Got that?

Something about us stabbing truth with a dagger of evil. Sounds pretty cool, but boy, those Iraqi diplomats are so long-winded I can barely keep up!

The Security Council, however, or indeed those who can basically play an influential role in it, have, instead of leaving the American administration and its lackey reap the result of their evil, saved wrongdoing rather than halted it. We shall see when remorse will not do any good for those who bite on their fingers.

Okay, there's definitely something lost in the translation here. Remorse will not do any good for those who bite on their fingers? Huh?

He who remains silent in the defense of truth is a dumb devil.

I think I got that in a fortune cookie the other day.

Finally, after over halfway through this rambling mess, we get:

We hereby inform you that we will deal with resolution 1441, despite its bad contents, if it is to be implemented according to the premeditated evil of the parties of ill-intent, the important thing in this is trying to spare our people from harm.

Whew...you could have saved a lot of ink and just sent the UN this bit.

The SC will be compelled before the public opinion and the law to activate paragraph 14 of its resolution No. 687, by applying it to the Zionist entity (Israel), and then, to all the Middle East region, to make it a region void of mass destruction weapons. The number of just people will then increase in the world, and Iraq's possibility to drive away the cawing of the crows of evil that daily raid its land, and kill Iraqis and destroy their property by their bombs. This will help the stability of the region and the world if it is accompanied by a resolution that will not be based on double standards, to put an end to the Zionist occupation of Palestine, and other occupied Arab territories, and if the warmongers stop their aggressions on the Muslims and the world.

Now I'm in favor of the eradication of the nuclear weapons, throughout the world, but do we really need to be lectured by the Iraqis?

And what does this have to do with them driving "away the cawing crows of evil that daily raid" their land? I'm guessing they're referring to the no-fly zones. Cawing crows, huh?

And what are all these references to Zionism doing in an acceptance letter? Hmm...

And finally:

"Do ye secure He Who is in Heaven will not cause you to be swallowed up by the earth when it shakes." (Allah's is the Word of Truth)

Allah is the Greatest

Yeah, sure he is. I don't know if we should read this ending quotation as a threat, veiled or not, but the letter's full of plenty of unveiled ones anyway, so take your pick.

And I can tell you this, I fully expect tomorrow morning's newspapers and on-line op-eds to be full of condemnation for the bellicose rhetoric used by the Iraqis.

Cover your eyes and you'd think you were listening to a cowboy.

A belligerent, scurrilous, Jew-hating cowboy.