War with Iraq could justify targeting of Saddam Hussein

WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders would be legitimate targets for U.S. military forces in a war, the White House said today.

“If we go to war in Iraq and hostilities result, command and control and top generals, people who are in charge of fighting the war to kill the United States’ troops, cannot assume that they will be safe,” spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “If you go to war, command and control are legitimate targets under international law.”

Asked whether that could mean Saddam, Fleischer said, “Of course.”

A 1976 ban on assassinating foreign leaders was put into place by President Ford in response to criticism of CIA-backed plots in the 1960s and 1970s. President Reagan extended the executive order in 1981 to include hired assassins.

Bush could overturn the ban by signing a document, but Fleischer declined to say whether he is considering doing so.

Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., has been quoted as saying that Bush told him he would probably order Saddam’s death “if we had a clear shot” at the Iraqi leader.

“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,” Fitzgerald said in an interview with the suburban Chicago newspaper the Daily Herald. “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.

Today, Fitzgerald refused to discuss the matter, repeatedly saying, “no comment.”

Fleischer said Bush did not recall the conversation with Fitzgerald. “I know that Senator Fitzgerald is not quite certain the date it took place, or where it took place, it could have been a year ago, he says. So I think there is some uncertainty in Senator Fitzgerald’s mind,” Fleischer said.

A Fitzgerald spokesman said he thought the conversation took place Jan. 7, when the senator flew back to Washington with Bush aboard Air Force One following the president’s Chicago speech promoting his tax-cut plan.