Saddam purported negotiating for safe passage out of Iraq
 

Wow.

If this is to be believed, I go back and forth over this.

I think if he is willing to give up the WMD, then it is in our best interest. If he flees, it will also demoralize those who still fight for him.

Then again, if there is anyone in this world who deserves to be run down like vermin, it is him.


LINK

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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.

Mr. Hussein was also quoted promising 300 trillion dollars, 19 virgins in the after-life, and free tickets to disneyland for anyone willing to get him the fuck out of Iraq.

i dont know how reliable this sunday mirror is.

If this is true, which I doubt, I say take him up on it. Let him out, arrest him and have him stand trial for his crimes. This will insure peace, less fighting, and bolster morale in Iraq. I just have not heard this from anyother source.

What's our future Prime Minister doing in Iraq?

/canuck with a horrible sense of humour.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97889,00.html

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.

The aide led soldiers to a letter, allegedly from Saddam, asking for a safe exile to the ex-Soviet republic of Belarus in exchange for information about bank accounts holding tens of millions in pillaged money and details of the elusive weapons of mass destruction.

Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division — which controls Tikrit north of Baghdad — told Reuters that the Mirror story was inaccurate.

"The 4th Infantry Division has not had any contact with any former regime members regarding Saddam Hussein's disposition," he told Reuters.

The U.S. has in the past insisted it would never negotiate a surrender or exile plan with Saddam.

The Mirror report said Saddam's aide approached American troops in Tikrit headquarters on Sept. 12 and took them to a suburb in the vicinity. The tabloid reports one of Saddam's security chiefs was waiting with a handwritten note, purportedly from the fugitive former president of Iraq. The letter requested negotiation talks with the U.S. military.

The Mirror reported that President Bush was being briefed regularly about the talks by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who was coordinating the negotiations. The tabloid said that the U.S. had no intention of giving Saddam exile, but was engaging in the talks to pinpoint his whereabouts.

Saddam has been on the run since his ouster in April by U.S.-led forces.

American commanders in the region have previously said it's likely that Saddam might be hiding in his hometown because he still has heavy support in the area from family, local tribal members and other residents.

U.S. and other allied forces invaded Iraq in March, citing an imminent threat to national security because of weapons of mass destruction. Evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons has so far not been found.

I knew it was too good to be true.

Oh well.

Thanks for the update, Mojo_PeiPei.

Oh yes... too good to be true... what? Because Fox News says so?

Give me a break! This source is just as reliable as the Mirror.


I think all we can get out of this is that they are talking. Other than that it is all speculation and spin.

Lol

Honestly, why is he even in iraq, i woulda left atleast 3 weeks before the US invasion happened, to somewhere in africa, etc

maybe we don't know where he is at all, because as soon as the US is chasing some big, bad guy like Saddam or Osama the dudes suddenly become immortal stealth-kings who randomly haunts people's minds. I'm almost starting to think that both villains are of more use as scary boogymen in the back of people's minds than prisoners of war. If that didn't sound so paranoid.

I'm very surprised we haven't found those two guys. I guess maybe I don't think as sneakily as they must or, we just aren't that good at this stuff.

If the latter is the case, then this will be good practice.

Does Vegas have a line on this? Bet on the number of days to capture?

Thanks for listening.

I dunno, I think if we got Saddam we would expose it, Boost our morale, demoralize remaining baathishts and the IRaqi people would really get behind us. Someone like Osama we might be less quick for fear of retaliation or to make him a martyr.

If you really believe that all Iraqi's in opposition to the US occupation are Supporters of Saddam that is. I don't. It's natural for a people to oppose occupation from foreign countries. national pride goes way deeper than affliction to partys or rulers.

An example: historians believe most soliders fighting for Stalin during WW2 fought on behalf of "mother Russia", not Stalin, they put their lives at risk for their homeland even though it meant supporting a much hated oppressor.

The same can be said about Iraqis fighting American occupants: they are rather fighting to rid their homeland of foreign rule, than to support a hated tyrant like Saddam.

First off, even if that story were true, the U.S. Military would only be doing this to make Saddam think he's in control. See, Belarus is a much easier country to search rather than Iraq, and the United States would be able to keep tabs on him easier. We might even let him run free for awhile, but at the same time, cooperating with the Belarussians to keep Saddam in an isolated area, that way, once we have the money, and the locations of the WMDs, we capture him, slap a big "STUPID" sign on him and parade him in an International Court. If you think about it, it's not all that crazy. Tho the U.S. would never let Saddam run free for very long anyways.

Re: Saddam purported negotiating for safe passage out of Iraq
 

What about the guy that actually had something to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks? What was his name... oh right, Osama Bin Laden. It seems as if everybody forgot about him.

Maybe you've forgotten about Osama Bin Laden, but the troops we have in Afghanistan looking for him haven't. The only reason we don't hear about Afghanistan more is that there aren't any nice hotels for the press to stay in in Kabul.