Saudis explore exile deal to spare Saddam, region

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Saudi Arabia is spearheading an Arab initiative to persuade Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq voluntarily to avert a potentially devastating Middle East war.

A senior Saudi official visited Baghdad secretly in December to assess whether Saddam would be willing to step down and live in exile, Arab diplomatic sources said.

With U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf expected to double in the coming weeks, Arab leaders hope to stave off an apparently inevitable conflict with Iraq that could have destabilizing repercussions on their own countries.

But among Arabs and diplomats who know the Iraqi leader, there is little optimism the 11th-hour bid will succeed.

The Saudi official, a senior Army officer attached to the Saudi Interior Ministry, traveled to Baghdad after a mid-December meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Qatar, sources said. The official was to hold talks with Saddam, but results of the meeting are unknown.

Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Arab leaders have urged Saddam to seek a peaceful resolution, but he would not confirm that an initiative to offer the Iraqi leader exile was under way.

"Communication is continuing on levels announced and unannounced, but all the Arab countries are involved in preventing any military action against Iraq," he said.

In August, Qatar's foreign minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani, visited Baghdad for talks with Saddam that newspaper reports said included an offer of exile for the Iraqi leader in an undisclosed country. Qatari and Iraqi officials denied the reports.

U.S. officials have welcomed the idea of Saddam leaving power without force being used against him but have denied the U.S. is engaged in coordinating such a deal with Arab leaders.

"I think Secretary (of State Colin) Powell and Secretary (of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld have both said that it's an opportunity (Saddam) should take advantage of. But we're not behind those proposals," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Proposed havens for Saddam include Syria, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Russia and Belarus. Last week, the Iranian newspaper Entekhab reported that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had told his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, that the U.S. intended to overthrow Saddam without a "war, bloodshed and heavy military expenditure," and that Iran and Russia were possible choices of exile.

Kharrazi dismissed the media speculation as "groundless rumors."

It is not only Arab leaders who are pushing for Saddam's peaceful ouster. A group of Arab intellectuals has compiled a petition calling on him to step down to avoid a "catastrophe" in the Middle East.

"The immediate resignation of Saddam Hussein, whose rule for over three decades has been a nightmare for Iraq and the Arab world, is the only way to avoid more violence," reads the petition, which is to be made public this week.

Said one of the signatories, Chibli Mallat, a Lebanese professor of international law: "There has been a tragic silence on the fate of the Arab world by the Arab world. Our lives are at stake with all these chemical weapons — so we had this sort of reaction that we should do something."

Yet many Arab and Western diplomats and analysts believe Saddam will not leave Iraq voluntarily.

"Far more likely is that he will try to manage the crisis to survive and, if that is not possible, to go down as a martyr in the Arab struggle against Israel and the recurrent humiliations inflicted by the West," said Joe Wilson, a former diplomat in Baghdad and the last U.S. official to meet with Saddam.

The pressure to defuse the crisis was underscored yesterday as U.N. experts began their first aerial inspection within Iraq. Inspectors used helicopters to fly to suspect sites in a hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Teams from the United Nations have stepped up weapons searches before reporting to the Security Council by Jan. 27.

U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said last night that inspectors flew to the Al Qaim State Company for Phosphates, a factory about 250 miles from Baghdad that Iraqi officials said produces nothing more than fertilizer, to enhance their capability to conduct surprise visits by shaving travel time.

In related developments:

• U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who would direct any operation to oust Saddam, has begun sending staff members to the U.S. Central Command's heavily protected forward headquarters in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, U.S. defense officials said.

• Britain ordered a 16-vessel Royal Navy task force carrying aircraft, helicopters and about 3,000 commandos to head toward the Persian Gulf. It also began mobilizing hundreds of reservists.

In Paris, President Jacques Chirac signaled France's willingness to join a military campaign against Iraq, telling troops to be prepared for "anything that may happen."

• U.S. warplanes on Monday bombed two Iraqi anti-aircraft radars that threatened pilots patrolling the southern "no-fly zone."

• Iraq's oil minister, Lt. Gen. Amer Mohammed Rashid, retired yesterday after he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 and was replaced by a close associate of Saddam, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. Rashid's wife, Rihab Taha, a scientist dubbed "Dr. Germ," was questioned by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s about what was thought to be her central role in developing biological weapons.

• A war against Iraq and its aftermath could injure more than 500,000 Iraqis, halt the country's oil production and create nearly 1 million refugees, according to estimates by U.N. planners.

• An envoy from the Philippines arrived in the Gulf yesterday to prepare for the possible evacuation of tens of thousands of Filipino workers in the event of war in Iraq. The envoy is to visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where foreign workers do much of the manual, domestic and office labor.

Information from Seattle Times news services is included in this report.