In a surprise move, the White House announced today that prior to the invasion of Iraq, American military forces will be directed towards another nation that is closer to home, and a far greater threat to national security. That nation: the United States of America.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld released the shift in policy at a hastily arranged press conference at Camp Pendleton, California, which stunned official Washington and left Democrats scrambling to avoid gibbering on live television.

“After reviewing our reasons for the invasion of Iraq,” said Secretary Rumsfeld, “we applied President Bush’s war on terrorism doctrine to other nations that we thought might pose a greater threat to homeland security.”

Rumsfeld laid out the reasoning behind the decision. “First, as we’ve said before, there are known Al-Qaeda operatives working within United States territory, and actions taken by the current government have been insufficient to stop them. Second, this is a nation that has one of the largest arsenals of weapons of mass destruction on the planet, and has made clear that they intend to improve and increase this arsenal, possibly placing those weapons among their ‘Axis’ allies abroad.”

“Third,” he continued, “this country flouts the authority of the international community and shows no respect for international law. All they respect is raw, military force. We’re going to show them that we have that force, and the will to use it.”

Rumsfeld’s speech was interrupted by a cacophony of questions shouted from the press pool. In response to a shrieking CNN correspondent, Rumsfeld said, “Yes, we have compiled information on where Al-Qaeda is most likely to be, and we will be concentrating our forces where the enemy is located.”

“We have divided the country into ‘red’ states and ‘blue’ states. Red states show little or no Al-Qaeda activity; blue states are far more dangerous.” Again stopped by the press, this time by a Washington Post correspondent standing on a chair and waving her arms, he added, “Well, we thought that the five-color threat assessment was too complex to present to the American people in this case, so we decided to simply divide the country into those people on the side of freedom, and those people who hate freedom.”

Rumsfeld said with a large, unruly grin, “We have a large base of contiguous states which are safe locations from which to start operations. Our early attention will be in the Northeast, where there are large populations over a small territory; this will make it simple to establish early air dominance and then move in and eradicate the terrorist factions.”

When asked for details about the nature of the military operation, Rumsfeld said, “I have that information. And you do not. That’s all there is to it.” The room fell entirely silent. Then he barked, “Wusses. I can’t believe you get paid for this. Our first target is complete containment of this region,” gesturing with a laser pointer at New York state and leaving smoldering tracks on the map.

“We will run an amphibious landing down the Hudson River from the east. Unfortunately, from the west the Great Lakes region is almost entirely blue state, so if we can’t move our forces through Ohio, we’ll be looking for support from Canada, the Uzbekistan of North America.”

[Contacted by reporters in Ottawa, Canadian Defense Minister John McCallum said, “We’ll be discussing the American request with Prime Minister Chrétien, and of course we want to provide all necessary assistance to our neighbors, but frankly we think they’ve lost their minds.” Then he looked around nervously and left the Peakes Building in a black, unmarked limousine.]

A Guardian reporter asked Rumsfeld mellifluously, “What do you think the reaction will be abroad to your declaring war on a democratic state?”

Rumsfeld responded, laughing, “Democratic state? The Zimbabweans hold more responsible elec…”, before he was cut off by Karl Rove whapping him in the back of the head with a copy of Roll Call.

Rumsfeld called an end to the press conference and started to leave the podium, when the New York Times asked, “When will you be providing more information about your plans?”

Rumsfeld glowered and growled, “It’s a safe bet that the Times will very shortly be getting an exclusive.”