Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today denied that the US will maintain a "permanent" military presence in Iraq.
Rumsfeld noted that the sun is expected to burn out in the next few billion years, adding that the American forces would certainly relinquish all Iraq military bases at that time.
Pentagon sources later confirmed that the US occupation
of Iraq might end even sooner, in the event that a comet collides with
the Earth and destroys all life.
