NEWTON'S LAW: RAT INFESTATION AT PENTAGON PUTS BUREAUCRACY INTO ACTION

Saddam Hussein was a real pest for the U.S. military. Oh, right.

Libya continues to be a terrorist threat. Come on, get serious.

Every sovereign nation with a lunatic in its executive office seems to be developing nuclear weapons. Welcome to the real world.

Hey, Dick Cheney's got his hands full.

So, what's all this about rats at the Pentagon?

Rodent terminology isn't foreign at the Department of Defense.

Military intelligence operatives are quite adept at planting "moles." In the upper reaches of martial hierarchy might be several "gophers" (that is, "go-fers"), maybe even some of the multi-star variety. If some judgments in the armed forces seem inexplicable, you might even believe there are a few "squirrels" running the show.

Table these labels. What we're discussing here are rats, Rattus ~norvegicus, the genuine item. They are infesting the hub of this nation's military machinery.

During 1991, rat sightings at the Pentagon proliferated. In food service areas alone, there were 51 sightings in the last year.

In a manner more bureaucratic than military, the federal agency headquartered in the Pentagon took immediate action: it issued a memorandum.

This was in May. The manager of a company that runs Pentagon cafeterias informed building health officers that rats were being captured on a regular basis near the food lines.

(Members of Congress?)

For good measure, according to a Washington Post story, the manager sent the memo along "with a dead Norwegian rat sealed in a plastic bag."

Never mind that we're apparently dealing with the godfather of food service managers. Don't you think the Norwegians have some nerve (and misplaced military priorities) sending their rats to infiltrate the Pentagon?

The Pentagon is said to be the world's largest office building; more than 24,000 people work there. Reportedly, it has the longest hallway that can be found in any structure on the planet. Maybe that's an attraction for rats, who seem eager to stretch their legs in a good sprint at every opportunity.

A more likely explanation for the infestation is the location of the Pentagon, which is roughly in a swamp in Arlington, Va. People who know about such things say the last two winters in Arlington have been unusually mild ... and unusually ripe for rat propagation.

Thus, having whipped the Soviets into dissolution and brought down the Iron Curtain through abiding faith and military stolidness, America's instrument of defense faces an enemy within.

Since many rats closely resemble Manuel Noriega, maybe the Joints Chiefs would authorize a "Just Cause" against these varmints. It would let them know the real meaning of stealth. Put a heat-seeking missile on their scraggly tails and they'd think twice about breaking in line at a taxpayer-supported snack bar.

It's more likely that something less dramatic than an F-15 swooping through a Pentagon corridor will be ordered.

I noted with some interest a story a couple of years ago that detailed a 15-page set of specifications issued by the Defense Department for the procurement of chocolate chip cookies.

If it takes 15 pages of instructions for the baking of dough, controlling rats in a mammoth building might require a new cabinet post.

Needed will be a huge appropriation, a feasibility study, another huge appropriation, congressional hearings, an environmental impact study (to ensure the rats aren't being displaced from a natural habitat) and perhaps even a special prosecutor to investigate the waste, featherbedding and cost overruns that are bound to occur in an endeavor of this substance.

In the end, there will be a grant approved for construction of some Rube Goldberg device that waylays unsuspecting rodents seeking meals at a military installation.

And it will be the mother of all rat traps.