Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade next when his telephone rang.

"Hallo! Mr. Hussein," a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down in County Cavan, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you."

"Well, Paddy," Saddam replied, "This is indeed important news. Tell me, how big is your army?" "At this moment in time," said Paddy after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub -- that makes eight."

Saddam sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."

"Begorra!" said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back."

Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. "Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on. We have managed to acquire some equipment."

"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Saddam asked.

"Well, we have two combine harvesters, a bulldozer and Murphy's tractor from the farm."

Once more Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16,000 tanks, 14,000 armored personnel carriers, and my army has increased to one and a half million since we last spoke."

"Really?" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back."

Paddy rang again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, the war is still on. We have managed to get ourselves airborne. We've modified Ted's ultra-light with a couple of rifles in the cockpit, and the bridge team has joined us as well."

Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have 10,000 bombers, 20,000 MiG-19 attack planes, my military complex is surrounded by laser-guided surface-to-air missile sites, and since we last spoke, my army has increased to two million men."

"Faith and begorra!" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back."

Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Saddam. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Well," said Paddy, "We've all had a chat, and there's no way we can feed two million prisoners."