Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...dealtoavertwar

Sure, while they stonewalled the UN inspectors, they at the same time were going to let us do it?

Its called stalling.

Saddam was offered a deal, leave Iraq.

He had ample time (too much in my opinion) to accept our peace deal. He didn't, so we used the stick instead.

Am I the only one so paranoid to worry that everything from here on out is a trap?

Nice try Saddam its called too little too late.

Well, unusually, I agree with Food Eater Lad here.

Saddam should never have expelled the weapons inspectors. Now, it turns out that they didn't have WMD after all and Bush/Blair went to war on false premises, but that's another can of worms...

Mr Mephisto

Who says that they don't have WMD's? The U.N. inspectors couldn't find them when he had them, why do you put it past him to build/acquire them when their gone?

Lets make a deal Monty!!! Lets make a deal!!!!!!

Funny, when there are hundreds of thousands of troops building on his border he then wanted to talk.

We gave him his options and he refused, we were not about to let him dictate how it was going to play out.

Now I was a supporter of the Iraqi action, but I think I would be disappointed if this turned out to be true and the admnistration didn't make a serious effort to pursue this avenue. I agree that Saddam had already screwed things up by expelling the weapons inspectors, but I think that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard... Our stated reason for regime change was primarily Iraqi WMD. If there was a possibility that we could have peacefully ascertained that there were or were not WMDs I'd like to think that it would have been pursued. Back-channel negotiations are nothing new - the article even points that out.

why was it too late? is it ever too late to avert war? If there was even a chance that we could find a peaceful resolution, why wouldn't we take it? I thought one of the reasons for the building up of troops on the border was to put pressure on Saddam. If he was succumbing the pressure, wouldn't that be a good thing?

Yes, lets trust Saddam. He has been so honest and forthright for 12 years. I say lets trust him....

He had 12 years. Do we have to put 200k men on his border every time we want him to abide by the agreements? Give me a break. He had more chances then he should have to start with, but Clinton didn't have the balls in 98.

I think it's better to risk having to deploy a bunch of troops than to have hundreds of troops and thousands of civilians die.

And if the article is true, he did offer to allow american troops inside, so it wouldn't be so hard to prevent future Iraqi disobedience by force.

The opposite of peace is not war, it is tyranny. War is a tool used to secure freedom.

I thought we had made it perfectly clear - the only way for him to avert war at that point would be to leave the country.

Saddam did not expell the weapons inpectors; they were withdrawn.

Well put. Of course you can always avert war and strike another deal with him. But this is what he's been trying to do forever. We gave him conditions and he refused to abide by them. I would expect him to try to snake his way out of it one last time the way he tried to snake his way around things for years.

That's another one of the common myths about the whole Iraq war thing, that Saddam expelled the weapons inspectors.
That, along with Saddam being part of 9/11 and us finding proof of WMD.

Unfortunately most americans hold at least one of those misperceptions.

You mean most FOX and CBS viewers, right?

Maybe it depends on "when" you are talking about weapons inspectors being expelled.

According to CNN they were in 1997. If you mean 2003, then I assume you are correct. They were withdrawn that time around.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9711/13/iraq.expel2/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in534132.shtml

Back in December 2002 General Amir al-Saadi - Iraq's top government scientist and a close advisor to Saddam Hussein - insisted that Iraq had no prohibited weapons and publicly invited the CIA to join the U.N. inspection teams.

The Bush admin declined the offer.

Hell, that is a major breakthrough, being able to get the CIA in there to verify for us. Why pass something like that up unless...
you really don't want to avert war.
I have a hard time believing that too, but there is mounting evidence. These two stories, plus Bush trying to implicate Iraq from the get go into 9/11. I can't help but believe that he has been pursuing real war, damn the diplomacy for over 2 years now.

Or: The threat of imminent peace must have overwhelmed them.