Now if we apply the Iraq model...

We should be invading Zimbabwe at any time now! After all, President Mugabe is starving his citizens to death.

President Robert Mugabe's rosy claims of a bumper harvest were flatly contradicted by the mayor of Zimbabwe's second city yesterday when he disclosed that 162 people have starved to death in Bulawayo since January. ...

Jonathan Moyo, the information minister, called him a "liar" and insisted that starvation was unknown in Zimbabwe. "Malnutrition is just a case of not having a balanced diet," he told The Herald, an official daily.

"People in the USA are fat because they eat too many burgers. That's malnutrition." [That's right! Lemmie pat muh buddah.]

But the United Nations forecasts that Zimbabwe will grow only one million tons of grain this year, about half the country's needs. The mass seizure of white-owned farms has combined with drought to wreck agriculture.

Last year, almost half of Zimbabwe's 12 million people survived on international food aid.

A UN-led assessment mission estimates that five million Zimbabweans will need outside help again before the next harvest in March. But the regime claims a bumper harvest of 2.4 million tons of grain and has told international donors their help is no longer needed. Anyone contradicting this message is targeted for vilification.