U.S. Military Denies Report of Saddam Deal

The U.S. military on Sunday denied a British tabloid report that Saddam Hussein has been trying to broker a safe-haven deal with American officials for the past nine days, according to Reuters news service.

Quoting an unnamed "senior Iraqi," the UK's Sunday Mirror reported that Saddam had sent his English-speaking representative to negotiate with American forces in the dictator's hometown of Tikrit.

Here I go, preaching to the choir, but ...

I don't think the administration ever put forward the immediate threat of Iraqi WMD to the US as a cause for war. The direct threat, yes. Which brought up comparisons with North Korea and the USSR. Those countries posed a direct threat (perhaps an even more imminent threat others argued) but we chose to contained them, or were demanding multilateral diplomatic solutions.

I offer the poll below as further argument that the administration did not try to convince the public that Iraqi WMD posed an immediate threat to the US. I could be wrong, and the administration did try and failed. But I don't think so, because I can't find where they made the "immediate" WMD threat argument.

*CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll*. Latest: March 14-15, 2003. N=1,007 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (total sample).
"Which comes closest to your view: Iraq poses an immediate threat to the United States, Iraq poses a long-term threat to the U.S., but not an immediate threat, or Iraq does not pose a threat to the United States at all?" Options were rotated. Form A (N=488, MoE ± 5)
		Immed- iate Threat	Long- term Threat	Not a Threat At All	No Opinion
		%	%	%	%
	3/14-15/03	36	54	10	-
	2/7-9/03	36	56	6	2
	1/31 - 2/2/03	29	61	7	3
						.

There was talk of the scope and mechanics of the threat, including drones and the danger of what we don't know, "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."⁷

Personally, I think the US did face a threat from the Middle East of escalating, state sponsored, organized international terrorism. I think proliferation and terrorist's willingness to use deadlier weapons was part of that threat. I think ending our unresolved conflict with Iraq became necessary after 9/11. I think Saddam's actions leading up to the conflict justified our attack and, in a very Machiavellian way, strengthened our position (post-conflict) against other powers aspiring for multilateral or multipolar order in the world; and therefore more concerned with demonstrations of unquestionable US strength.

I'm also convinced Saddam had WMD in 1991, when we were exposed to chemical weapons at Khamisiyah and elsewhere during cleanup ops.

I think he still had them in 1995, when Kamel defected providing proof of Iraq's deception and continued efforts in it's WMD programs. To be fair, Kamel said Iraq did not possess WMD in 1995. He also said it really was a baby milk factory we bombed in 1991 (and again in 1998) and there was no military significance to the air defense shelter we bombed.^{8, 9} But then the documents on his chicken farm and the discovery by Dr.Diane Seaman on 25 September 1997^{10, 11} throws into question Kamel's denials of weapons. You could also compare the remarks by Khidhir Hamza and Kamel's comments on Hamza in the UN transcript.

I also think he had them in 1998, 2001 and 2002, when the world's intelligence agencies (including the CIA, Canadians and BND) and UNMOVIC were claiming Iraq was pursuing WMD.

The story in question
DESPERATE SADDAM OFFERS AMERICANS DEAL

Sep 21 2003

From Paul Martin In Baghdad

SADDAM Hussein has been in secret negotiations with US forces in Iraq for the past nine days, we can reveal.

The Iraqi dictator is demanding safe passage to the former Soviet republic of Belarus. In exchange, he has vowed to provide information on weapons of mass destruction and disclose bank accounts where he siphoned off tens of millions of dollars in plundered cash.

President Bush is being kept abreast of the extraordinary talks by his National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice. She is co-ordinating negotiations in Baghdad which are led by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of American forces in Iraq.

The United States has vowed never to negotiate with Saddam and want to take him dead or alive, but the White House hopes the clandestine talks will allow them to pinpoint the tyrant's exact location.

Saddam's English-speaking representative walked into the US HQ at Tikrit - the dictator's home town - on September 12 and asked to talk to senior officers.

He then led a group of US troops to a nearby suburb where one of Saddam's loyal security chiefs was waiting. The US officers were handed a hand-written note, purportedly from Saddam himself.

The security boss had a British-made Racal military radio set which he claimed gave him direct contact with people in the same room as the dictator. The radio is notoriously difficult to monitor.

He was immediately taken into custody, but the US has continued to exchange messages with Saddam using the radio and other means.

A senior Iraqi told The Sunday Mirror last night: "A representative of Saddam dressed in Western-style civilian clothes came to coalition people at Tikrit at sunset on September 12. He led them to a house where the security official was waiting.

"The discussions are now going on under the direct authority of General Sanchez. Naturally all the major decisions are being made at the level of the National Security Council, under Condoleezza Rice."

He maintained that Saddam had decided to seek a deal "because he is desperate, trapped and finding fewer and fewer people willing to give him shelter."

He added: "He resorts to arriving with a posse of armed men, and forcing them to give him hospitality. When he leaves the frightened 'hosts' are told they'll be killed if they say a word."

It is believed the US authorities will simply string Saddam along, aiming to track the go-betweens until they know exactly where to find the rogue leader.

"There's no doubt the net is closing, and that his supporters' efforts to get the Americans to pull out of Iraq are not succeeding," said the source.

"They can cause disruption and problems, but this does not bring Saddam any nearer to coming back to power, and he now knows it. The negotiators will try to keep the line of communication open as long as possible, but the word from Washington is: 'No deal'."

Saddam left strong hints that he was willing to talk in his last audio tape on Wednesday. It had a strongly defiant tone, but contained two significant indications that he was keen for a deal:

-SADDAM addressed the US president directly and gave him a possible get-out for a negotiated surrender. "There might be some who lied to you, but you believed those lies," he said, hinting that coalition intelligence was badly wrong.

-HE added: "If you want to discuss the withdrawal arrangements, some of the officials in the leadership arrested by your army ... you can contact them and hold a suitable dialogue."

Although Saddam was still proposing an unconditional American withdrawal from Iraq, coalition chiefs took his latest statement as a willingness to talk.

Since the fall of Baghdad in April the dictator has remained on the run.

Saddam-hunters say he moves disguised as a peasant or labourer in a long white dishdasha (gown), especially in remote countryside.

Fearing he will be spotted and betrayed, he seldom stays in one place for more than two hours. He is often sheltered by tribal leaders whom he appointed to replace the real leaders during his reign of terror.

"They owe their very existence and their status and money to him, so they feel a strong obligation," said one hunter.

"But the feeling of obligation gets less and less as time passes and the pressure mounts."

He is also believed to have made brief visits to Baghdad in brazen defiance of the occupying US forces.

One senior Iraqi told me: "He had set up over 1,000 hiding places before the fall, and I guess he goes from one to the other these days. When he was in power, even cabinet ministers wouldn't know where meetings were to be held.

"They were taken to a small bus, or if they were very senior the security sent a car. He's been a master of survival."

Saddam hunters have issued several photofit images of how he might look.

He has apparently run out of black hair-dye and will almost certainly have white hair.

"He's moving every two hours and he's not staying set," said Colonel Don Campbell, chief of staff of the 4th Infantry Division. "He has to."

Saddam has demanded to go to Belarus, the former Soviet republic which still has a president and leadership descended from the old guard Communist Party era.

Before the war the Americans told Saddam he could leave the country, but he spurned the offer.

Since then President Bush has rejected any idea of making a deal with the ousted leader and has put a $25million dead-or-alive bounty on his head.

-AN American soldier shot and killed a tiger in Baghdad's zoo after it attacked a colleague who had put his arms through the bars to feed it. "They turned up after the zoo was closed and were both drunk", an Iraqi keeper said.

Good post, o_c, thank you.

Andrew Sullivan posted a helpful excerpt from the President's 2003 SOTU speech in response to the other DNC talking heads:

KENNEDY VERSUS DEAN:

"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas," - Senator Edward Kennedy, describing the Bush administration's case for war.

"The president has never said that Saddam has the capability of striking the United States with atomic or biological weapons any time in the immediate future." - Howard Dean, Face the Nation, September 29, 2002.

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." - President George Bush, State of the Union, 2003, clearly conceding that the threat from Saddam was not imminent. ~ http://www.andrewsullivan.com

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