This happened some years ago.

Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade next when his telephone rang. “Hallo! Mr. Hussein,” a heavily accented voice said. “This is Paddy down in County Cavan, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!”

“Well, Paddy,” Saddam replied, “This is indeed important news! Tell me, how big is your army?”

“At this moment in time,” said Paddy after a moment’s calculation, “there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbour Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub-that makes 8!”

Saddam sighed. “I must tell you Paddy that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.”

“Begorra!”, said Paddy, “I’ll have to ring you back!”

Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. “Right Mr.Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some equipment!”

“And what equipment would that be, Paddy?” Saddam asked.

“Well, we have 2 combine harvesters, a bulldozer and Murphy’s tractor from the farm.”

Once more Saddam sighed. “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16 thousand tanks, 14 thousand armored personnel carriers, and my army has increased to a million and a half since we last spoke.”

“Oh dear!” said Paddy “I’ll have to ring you back!”

Paddy rang again the next day. “Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We’ve modified Ted’s ultralight with a couple of rifles in the cockpit and the bridge team has joined us as well!”

Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. “I must tell you Paddy that I have 100 bombers, 20 squadrons of MiG 19 attack planes, my military complex is surrounded by laser-guided surface-to-air missile sites, and since we last spoke, my army has increased to two million.”

“Faith and begorra!”, said Paddy, “I’ll have to ring you back.”

Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. “Right Mr.Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war.”

“I’m sorry to hear that” said Saddam. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Well,” said Paddy “We’ve all had a chat, and there’s no way we can feed 2 million prisoners of war.”