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Sen. Fitzgerald: Bush Talked Of Assassinating Hussein

By Eric Krol Daily Herald Political Writer

President Bush recently told Sen. Peter Fitzgerald he would order the assassination of Saddam Hussein "if we had intelligence on where he was now and we had a clear shot," the Illinois senator said Monday.

Such an order would represent a major shift away from a nearly 30-year U.S. ban on assassinating foreign leaders. That ban was put into place during the Ford administration in response to criticism of CIA-backed plots in the 1960s and 1970s.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Monday he "can't confirm whether or not" Bush and Fitzgerald discussed the potential assassination of Hussein. He said the Ford "executive order remains in place."

Fitzgerald's comments came during an interview with the Daily Herald editorial board in which he was asked how the United States could capture and remove Hussein from power without killing thousands of Iraqi citizens in the process.

"That's a really good question because the administration -- I have personally talked to the president about this and if we had intelligence on where he was now, and we had a clear shot to assassinate him, we would probably do that. President Bush would probably sign an executive order repealing the executive order put in place by President Ford that forbid the assassination of foreign leaders," Fitzgerald said.

Asked later to clarify whether Bush had told him he would authorize changing U.S. policy to kill Hussein, the Inverness Republican said: "Yes, yes. Now, he told me that aboard Air Force One."

A Fitzgerald spokesman said he thinks the conversation took place Jan. 7 when the senator flew back to Washington with Bush following the president's Chicago speech touting his tax-cut plan.

"I don't want to betray any confidences of the president," Fitzgerald quickly added. "I assumed he (Bush) had said that somewhere else. But maybe if he didn't say that anywhere else, I shouldn't have said that just now."

In February 1976, President Ford officially banned assassination attempts by the CIA. President Reagan extended that executive order in 1981 to include hired assassins.

Last October, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer raised eyebrows by suggesting "the cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it upon themselves, is substantially less" than the estimated $9 billion-a-month cost of a war in Iraq. Fleischer reiterated then that the Ford assassination ban remains in place.

Speaking at a Houston fund-raiser last September, Bush noted U.S. intelligence officials believe Hussein wanted Bush's father assassinated 10 years ago: "This is the guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."

Fitzgerald said he would support a change in policy to assassinate Hussein.

"I think in this limited case it would make sense if you could avoid a lot of civilian casualties, harm to our own young men and women in the armed forces, I think it would make sense. Not as a permanent change in policy but as a one-time policy," Fitzgerald said.

Illinois' senior senator, Democrat Dick Durbin of Springfield, cautioned against such a policy.

"I would say we ought to take care not to go too far on this issue," said Durbin, who sits on the Senate's intelligence panel. "In the world we live in today, any elected official would be fair game for retaliation."

An official at the Permanent Mission of Iraq to the United Nations said only Iraqi ambassador Mohammed Aldouri could comment, but he was at U.N. hearings Monday and unavailable.

Assassinate: Fitzgerald would support policy change; Durbin urges caution

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