If and when we ever find these weapons of mass destruction, President Bush plans to address the UN General Assembly and, demonstrating incredible diplomacy and decorum, turn to the French and German delegates who had argued against going to war in the first place and say, through official UN interpreters: "Nyah, Ny-Nyah, Ny-Nyah, Nyah."

But for now the WMDs are still missing.

(By the way, we in the news media decided that from now on we're going to refer to weapons of mass destruction as WMDs because, frankly, we hate typing out long, descriptive names over and over again.)

Undaunted, the Bush administration has taken the official stance of being unworried about finding the WMDs. Their rationale for why WMDs haven't been found boils down to a single, indisputable fact: Iraq's a big country.

You can't argue with that. My almanac says Iraq covers 167,920 square miles. That means if you were to take Iraq and place it on top of the United States (not recommended), it would crush millions of Midwesterners, mostly people from Kansas.

Another reason why we haven't found WMDs could be because the Iraqis are better at hiding things than we thought. As an example of how good they are, I cite a recent Washington Post story that told about an Iraqi citizen who was in trouble with Saddam Hussein, so to avoid capture and certain execution, the man hid inside a wall for 22 years.

According to the Post article, in 1981 Jawad Amer Sayed was on the run from Saddam Hussein's police. So, overnight he built a false wall between two rooms. The hiding place measured 3 feet by 7 feet and had a secret trap door. This sort of desperate action would be unthinkable here in the US. The permits alone needed to build a false wall for the purpose of creating a hiding place would take months before being approved.

But in Iraq, at least before we showed up and introduced the Iraqi people to our unique form of government (known as a bureaucracy - which, according to Section V, subparagraph f of the official US handbook, has been the cornerstone of our nation for 227 years) this sort of lawless construction was commonplace. That means the WMDs could be hidden anywhere in Iraq behind non-compliant walls.

Another reason for the difficulty in locating WMDs is that we our sending young soldiers to do the job. Make no mistake, these are brave, young men. But only a few years ago they were still in high school, living at home, and having trouble finding the TV remote.

If we want to find these weapons quickly, then the Bush administration and the military need to get serious and immediately deploy thousands of moms into Iraq to start looking. Division after division of moms parachuting into all parts of Iraq should do the trick. Once on the ground, they can put their special maternal search talents to work as they ask Iraqi citizens probing questions such as: "Where did you last see the WMDs?" "Did you take them outside with you?" "Did you check under your bed?" "Well, they didn't just walk away by themselves, did they?"

Once the moms are sent in, I estimate they will locate all the WMDs within twenty minutes. I bet they'll also spot several potential biohazards: "All right, which one of you Iraqis left this half-eaten sandwich under the sofa?" And the world will be a much safer, and tidier, place because of their efforts.

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