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[sundubuman]

UAE official: Hussein was open to exile
UAE deal died at Arab League meeting days before Iraq war

Thursday, November 3, 2005 Posted: 0621 GMT (1421 HKT)

story.saddam.tribunal.jpg
Saddam Hussein had agreed in principle to leave Iraq days before the U.S.-led invasion, a UAE official says.


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Days before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein agreed in principle to accept an offer of exile from the United Arab Emirates, but the deal fell through, a UAE government senior official told CNN.

The reported offer came before an emergency Arab League meeting in Egypt in discussions between UAE officials and a Hussein aide, said the senior official, who was then a member of the UAE delegation to the Arab League.

The Iraqi president issued conditions, and the proposal went nowhere, the UAE official said.

The Hussein aide, Abed Hmoud, is now in jail in Iraq.

The UAE official's account was repeated by another source who attended the Arab League summit and, separately, by a senior UAE government official. (Watch: Exile plan faltered -- 2:5

At the time, President Bush was calling for regime change in Iraq.

Hussein wanted guarantees and international assurances, including a resolution by the Arab League giving its approval for his exile, the senior official said.

News of the reported offer from the UAE emerged last week during an interview broadcast by the Arab network Al-Arabiya with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates.

The offer was spearheaded by his father, then-UAE President Sheikh Zayed Ben Sultan Al Nahayan, who died November 3. (Full story)

"During those days, the circumstances we worked under needed a very swift decision, an immediate response," the crown prince said in a documentary broadcast by the network.

"We had secured the approval of the main players, everyone who was involved, and the man concerned -- Saddam Hussein -- in 24 hours," he said. "So we came to the summit to lay down all the facts at the conference table. There would have been results if the issues were brought up but, again, this is all part of the past right now."

Even if the issue had been pursued at the summit, it was not clear whether Saddam Hussein would have followed through with any agreement. In the same documentary, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak describes the Iraqi leader as "a difficult man; no one knew what he was thinking."

Arab League Ambassador to the United States Hussein Hassouna told CNN that the summit leaders were surprised by the proposal because it had not been on the agenda and league members had not been consulted.

"In my own view, there was not enough consultations prior to seizing the summit with the very sensitive issue," he said. "After all, you have to realize this was, in fact, putting an item whereby the Arab League would ask the head of state of a member state to go into exile."

The senior UAE official said representatives of certain Arab League countries "killed the suggestion," arguing that the UAE president was not influential enough to make such a suggestion.

The league members opted not to even put the item on the meeting agenda, the senior official said.

U.S. State Department officials told CNN they knew about the proposal but did not consider it seriously because they knew the Arab League was not doing so.

UAE sources said Adnan Pachachi, a UAE national and a prominent Sunni then in exile from Iraq, knew about the deal.

Pachachi, who spent more than 20 years in Abu Dhabi after he left Iraq, was the UAE president's legal adviser. He told CNN from London that he was not aware of its details or whether Hussein had agreed to exit Iraq.

Still, fragments of the story were public even then.

CNN reported in March 2003 that an exile plan for Hussein appeared to be gaining support among his Persian Gulf neighbors and that during the Arab League meeting the UAE president had submitted a proposal calling for Hussein to surrender power within 14 days and leave Iraq under the temporary control of the Arab League.

The emergency meeting of the Arab League ended March 1. Hostilities began March 19.

[sundubuman]

and imagine if France and Russia (and germany in tow) had the BALLS to stand up to Saddam prior to the war.

There wouldn't have been a war.

Considering the oil-for-food scandals envelopong Russian and French businesses.....

why isn't this the mainstream media story of the week.

Instead we've got Scooter Libby's weak-ass indictment after a 2-year investigation......


pathetic.

[sundubuman]

and for posterity's sake...


here are the president and Vice President on the threat Saddam posed to our world.


President

If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences. �� Now, let��s imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction��? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he��ll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who��s really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.




Here is the vice president:

If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He��s already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world.

[sundubuman]

just to clarify...


that was President Clinton and Vice President Gore in February of 1998.

[bucheon bum]

Another post

[Manner of Speaking]

[Manner of Speaking]

The Arab League and the Gulf states didn't "drop the ball".


They knew, like everybody else, that the US invasion was scheduled to go ahead whether or not Saddam Hussein resigned, went into exile, or died.


Everybody knew that. The Pentagon wasn't going to let all that buildup and propaganda go for nothing.


Of course, the Pentagon would have been perfectly happy to see Hussein go into exile, because it would have lead to the collapse of Iraqi military opposition and organization all that much quicker.


Your suggestion is just one more lie, told by the American government to its own people and to the rest of the world, to justify an illegal invasion of another country. An invasion which turned out to be pointless, since there were no WMDs anyway. Which the UN inspection teams would have found out eventually, if they had been given time.


They weren't, because common sense and legality would have interfered with the invasion schedule.

[sundubuman]

is that a bag full of wind I am sensing.......?

[sundubuman]

This "scheduled invasion"..... (which waited for more than a decade apparently........)


was it scheduled prior to 1991, after that?????


oh the lunatic left.......................


How do explain the Pentagon stopping at the Iraqi border in 91? part of the nefarious plan?

The left's need to see a bogeyman in everything the US does or stand for can only be explained by the complex psychological interactions of Hollywood thrillers and drug use.

Meanwhile, Saddam is awaiting trial.

Waiting for Oliver Stone to write a screenplay on Saddam, should be entertaining.

[wannago]

[The Bobster]

[Nowhere Man]

Nice lot of blah blah blah.

The president (and I'm not talking Clinton) invaded Iraq to "disarm" him.

We are still waiting for the arms he's gonna "dis".


March 2003- I'm talking days and weeks

May 2003= Mission Accomplished!

Summer 2003- Just wait...

Today- Look at the Arab League! Look at the UN! Don't look at Scooter!

Mind you, this is year 1 of the "steadfast leadership" we elected.

We're really doing quite well, right? America is a model for the world.

-torture
-lies
-going it alone

Yee Haw!