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UAE Says Saddam Agreed to Exile Before War
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer
10/29/05 "AP"
-- -- Saddam Hussein accepted an 11th-hour offer to
flee into exile weeks ahead of the U.S.-led 2003 invasion, but Arab
League officials scuttled the proposal, officials in this Gulf state
claimed.
The exile initiative was spearheaded by the late president of the
United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, at an
emergency Arab summit held in Egypt in February 2003, Sheik Zayed's
son said in an interview aired by Al-Arabiya TV during a
documentary. The U.S.-led coalition invaded on March 19 that year.
A top government official confirmed the offer on Saturday, speaking
on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Saddam allegedly accepted the offer to try halt the invasion and
bring elections to Iraq within six months, claimed the official and
Sheik Zayed's son.
"We had the final acceptance of the various parties ... the main
players in the world and the concerned person, Saddam Hussein," the
son, Sheik Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said during the program
aired Thursday to mark the first anniversary of his father's death.
Sheik Zayed's initiative would have given Saddam and his family
exile and guarantees against prosecution in return for letting Arab
League and U.N. experts run Iraq until elections could be held in
six months, the official said.
"We were coming (to the summit in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort) to
place the facts on the table," said Sheik Mohammed, who is deputy
chief of the Emirates armed forces and crown prince of Abu Dhabi.
"The results would have emerged if the initiative was presented and
discussed. This is now history."
The anonymous Emirates official said Arab League Secretary-General
Amr Moussa did not bring the proposal to the summit's discussion
because Arab foreign ministers had not presented and accepted it as
league protocol dictated.
At the time, Arab League leaders said the summit decided not to take
up the idea, citing league rules barring interference in members'
domestic affairs.
It was not immediately possible to verify the Emirates claims that
their offer had been accepted by Saddam, who is being held in U.S.
military custody in Iraq and his facing trial on charges of crimes
against humanity.
Officials from the Egypt-based 22-member Arab League declined to
comment.
But at the 2003 summit, the Iraqi delegation rejected the Emirates
proposal, while Iraq's former U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Al-Douri,
said Saddam was not going anywhere.
The Al-Arabiya documentary claimed Iraqi officials had dismissed the
idea because they did not know Saddam had accepted it.
Saddam himself remained defiant ahead of the U.S.-led onslaught and
hid in Iraq until being captured in December 2003.
The speculation over Saddam's acceptance of the offer comes three
years after the start of the Iraqi war.
The documentary also included an interview from Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak, who said the United States was aware of the proposal.
In a January 2004 interview with British Channel 4 TV, ex-Lebanese
President Amin Gemayel said Saddam had rejected calls to leave Iraq
and end the 2003 standoff with the United States. Gemayel mediated
between Saddam and the Bush administration.
One country that came up in the exile discussions was Belarus, but
the Emirates official said some governments balked at offering
sanctuary to Saddam's notorious sons, Odai and Qusai.
Almost all the Arab League's member states are Sunni Muslim-majority
nations and the pan-Arab body has kept Iraq at arm's length since
the U.S.-led invasion, which most of its members opposed.
Associated Press writer Salah Nasrawi contributed to this report
from Cairo, Egypt.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press
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