The Guardian 13 April, 2005
Bush offers retirees
option of serving in Iraq
Andy Borowitz
After receiving only muted support for his sweeping proposals to overhaul Social Security, President George W Bush has attempted to sweeten the pot, offering all retirees the opportunity to serve in Iraq.
With most insiders calling the president’s proposal for individual [social security] investment accounts dead on arrival in Congress, the White House hopes that Mr Bush’s offer of guaranteed military service to all retired Americans will find more favour.
Speaking at a rally in Detroit today, the president told his audience, "In the year 2054, the Social Security trust fund will be bankrupt, but the war in Iraq will be alive and well."
Under his new plan, the president said, upon reaching the age of 59 every participant in the Social Security program would be offered the opportunity to begin basic training for what Mr. Bush called "the adventure of their lives".
According to the president, retirees would be "totally free to choose" which Iraqi city they would like to patrol from a list of 20 cities including Baghdad, Tikrit, Fallujah, and oil-rich Kirkuk.
Mr Bush added that the average retiree serving in Iraq would earn approximately $1500 a month, which would be boosted to $1800 if the retiree should somehow stumble across weapons of mass destruction.
In Washington, former deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz [aged 61] said he was "intrigued" by the notion of spending his retirement years in Iraq but that he had decided to run the World Bank instead.
Elsewhere, anti-war protestors across Europe marked the second anniversary of President Bush ignoring antiwar protestors across Europe.
People’s Weekly World newspaper, 1st April, 2005.
(The Guardian has still to confirm that Bush came up with this idea by himself.)