PLAY POSSUM, PLEASE: We wonder if Saddam Hussein realizes it, but the United States has just given him a convenient exit from a war he can never win. If he knows what’s good for him and the rest of mankind, he better grab it.

An American B-52 dropped four 2,000-pound bombs Tuesday on a building where the despot was said to have been staying in Baghdad that day with his sons. The building and nearby structures were reduced to rubble around a 60-foot deep crater.

Saddam was either in the building or he was not. The US says he was there.

If he was there, he must be either dead or dying. If he is dead, he has been delivered mercifully from a most stressful stint as leader of a middling country marked for mauling by the reigning military world heavyweight champion.

And if Saddam was not there and is still alive somewhere… this is a golden opportunity to play dead and vanish with his riches into some haven to enjoy the rest of his, huh, death.

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DON A BURQUA: Saddam can leave his beloved Baghdad to his voluble information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who can continue to regale the foreign press with tall tales of mass distraction.

If Saddam is alive, there is no sense in his insisting that he is. He should just play along and play possum.

He can mow his mustache and don a burqua, get lost among women shepherding their children out of harm’s way and slip out of the country while Washington exults in the rather exaggerated report of Saddam’s demise.

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U.S. NEEDS OSAMA: The reality is that the terrorist network can do without Saddam. The guy is dispensable — unlike Osama bin Laden, whom the US needs badly.

Osama must be kept alive by the US if it wants to also keep alive its worldwide anti-terrorist campaign.

Without Osama to inspire and finance terrorists, or seem to, the US will have no more excuse to invade countries it conveniently labels as part of the Osama cabal of terrorists.

Saddam himself is despised by many of his fellow Middle East leaders. Until, of course, Uncle Sam obliged and boosted his rating in the Arab and Muslim world that is generally resentful of the US and Israel.

The despot better not emit a defiant moan from the grave dug for him by the US. He should quit while ahead among his grudging admirers.

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NO PLEA BARGAIN: You must have heard by now that Manila congressman Mark Jimenez has decided not to plea bargain in Florida and instead vowed to show before a jury his innocence to charges of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and wire fraud.

Before he voluntarily left Manila last December, it was bruited about that he would plea bargain, or admit his guilt and beg the US court for clemency in a bid to come off with light punishment.

Other aliens who also contributed to US campaign and party coffers and faced similar charges had taken the plea bargain route. They are now free after rendering community service as their court-imposed punishment.

Incidentally, Jimenez traveled to the US not in an extradition process, but as a case of voluntary departure to face his accusers. The distinction has legal implications as will be shown later in the trial.

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LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: Jimenez pleaded not guilty when arraigned last Monday before US Magistrate Peter Palermo of the Southern District Court of Miami, Florida.

We see his dropping of the original plan to plea bargain as a realization that an admission of guilt may affect his standing as a public official. Certain crimes, if admitted, can disqualify a person from holding or running for public office.

But a lawyer of Jimenez commented when we raised this point earlier that the charges he faced in Florida were mere misdemeanors that will not disqualify him from holding public office. Still, we see this as an interesting side issue.

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WHY NO BAIL HERE?: We first noticed the congressman’s case when the question of bail was raised in connection with the US request that he be extradited.

We thought that a man who is not yet arrested, arraigned, much less tried and convicted, is entitled to bail under our Constitution unless the crime ascribed to him is not bailable (such as heinous crimes) in this country.

It is curious that while our justice department went to great lengths blocking the usual bail, Jimenez was given provisional liberty in Florida after he posted a $300,000 corporate surety bond backed by US assets, and a $200,000 bond co-signed by his relatives and friends.

We note that another US court also granted bail to Atong Ang, a Filipino facing charges in the US and awaiting extradition in the opposite direction – back to the Philippines.

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PEREZ REJECTS BAIL: In opposing bail for Jimenez, then Justice Secretary Hernando Perez said the congressman was likely to escape if he had the chance. Hindsight shows that Jimenez had all the chance but he did not flee.

But we understand the stance of Perez, who must have been smarting from the congressman’s having accused him of extorting $2 million from him. This, by the way, is one unfinished business that Jimenez vows to pursue to its logical conclusion.

David Marcus, the American lawyer of Jimenez, said that he would show during the trial that his client is a victim of political persecution on both sides of the Pacific. Filipino lawyer Ed Escueta has gone to Miami to help out.

The US government case will not be helped any by the sadistic treatment accorded him by FBI agent James Nixon, acting as a legal officer of the US embassy in Manila.

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SADISTIC HANDLING: Nixon humiliated and handcuffed Jimenez throughout the flight from Manila to Guam, inflicted pain and discomfort, denied him his medicines, and delayed his arrival in Florida so Jimenez would miss his Friday bail hearing and stay in jail over the weekend.

Nixon then hid the congressman’s passport so he would be booked as an illegal alien, for which charges of illegal entry were slapped on the congressman despite his having left Manila voluntarily under the custody of Philippine and American authorities.

We expect Jimenez to add, if he finds it necessary, his narration of how he regularly delivered millions to somebody close to then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He has the cancelled checks to prove it.

There are reports that among the reasons why the Arroyo administration was in a hurry to throw out Jimenez was his threat that he would expose and prove the big-time extortion by some officials of the Arroyo administration.

His being in the US will not be a hindrance to his making more revelations about Arroyo officials. Persecution, real or perceived, will just goad him to speak up.