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Saddam exile plan scuttled prior to war, UAE says

Months before the invasion of Iraq, then president Saddam Hussein tentatively accepted a proposal to go into exile and avert war, but Arab leaders scuttled the deal, unable to reach consensus on it, senior officials in the United Arab Emirates said this week.

Sheik Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the son of the late president, Sheik Zayed al Nahyan, told the pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya on Saturday that his father had received tentative acceptance from Saddam to go into exile before the invasion of Iraq, in exchange for an amnesty and protection.

The sheik's claim is the first official admission that Saddam was considering stepping down under the proposed deal, which was presented at emergency Arab League summit talks at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik in March 2003, weeks before the invasion.

"We had gotten final agreement from the different parties, the main players in the world and the main person concerned -- Saddam Hussein," Muhammad told Al Arabiya in a program commemorating the one-year anniversary of his father's death.

"We were coming to put facts on the table, and there would have been results were it discussed," he said.

A senior UAE official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue, said representatives of the UAE met with Saddam on four occasions. He said Saddam appeared serious about a deal, but said Saddam demanded that the Arab League back the offer before he would commit to it, the official said.

"Saddam had accepted the concept," the official said. "Up till the last minute, there was an OK on the principle."

Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE minister of information and culture, also said in a statement that Saddam had said he "would respond favorably to our proposal."

UAE officials did not produce any evidence to back up the claim, and they stressed that Saddam's certain cooperation was far from guaranteed.

But when the final plan was presented to the Arab League in an emergency session just weeks before the start of the war, debate was squelched, UAE officials say. The Iraqi delegation, unaware of the back channel negotiations, scoffed at the proposal and general apathy pushed it aside. Arab League officials say the initiative was circulated but never debated.

"You can't surprise summits with something of this magnitude," said a senior source at the Arab League who was at the emergency session at the time. "Maybe it came too late, or it could have been better served by some confidential lobbying of the idea. But at the end of the day, this is all history."
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