A number of Mini-500 helicopter airframes that have been missing since the contentious bankruptcy of developer Revolution Helicopter, Inc. of Excelsior Springs, MO, turned up in an unlikely place: buried under tons of sand at Iraq's al-Taqqadum air base, west of Baghdad.

A White House statement said, "President George W. Bush always believed that the Iraqis were concealing weapons of mass destruction. This is proof enough for us. And no, the president might be a pilot, but he isn't flying THAT."

Democratic Candidate John F. Kerry's campaign likewise announced, "Our candidate might be a pilot too, but there are things he just won't fly, and we don't see a flip-flop coming on this issue."

Iraqi spokesman Mohammed Saheed al-Sahaf, aka Baghdad Bob, said from his cell, "There are no Mini-500s in Iraq. For crying out loud, the Baath party and Saddam Hussein are evil, not stupid. If there are these suicide weapons, they must be the work of foreigners, like Hamas or Mohammed Al-Faris."

Mohammed Al-Faris is believed to be an alias used by the promoter of the troubled kit helicopter.

Rumours in the volatile "Iraqi Street" have attributed the deaths of Saddam's notorious sons Uday and Qusay not to the American soldiers that claimed to have killed them, but to an ill-advised brotherly dare to fly the Mini-500.

Other rumors suggest that the aircraft was a Mossad or CIA plot to eliminate the two brothers.

An Army aviation maintenance officer, who has examined the Al-Taqqadum Minis, disagrees: "I've heard all the stories that a mastermind designed this to kill this guy or that guy. Horsefeathers. There is no indication that a mastermind did any work on this at all."

FMI: www.suicidehotlines.com