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Rumsfeld Offered Saddam Freedom - Report
5/1/2005
The U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld paid a secret visit to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and offered him freedom and a possible return to public life if he made a televised request to rebel groups for a ceasefire with allied forces, a media report said.
Quoting from the London based Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Ynetnews reported that Saddam promptly rejected the offer.
The visit to Saddam occurred when Rumsfeld paid a ‘surprise’ visit to Iraq some two weeks ago and was known only to a few Iraqi officials in Jordan, the Arab daily reported quoting sources.
Some two weeks ago the British paper The Daily Telegraph reported that Iraqi gunmen were offered a "deal" to halt all attacks in return for a reduced sentence for Saddam, likely to be sentenced to death.
However, an Iraqi government official is said to believe that Saddam’s Baath party will request to return to politics, the report said.
Forum posts
5 May 2005, 02:29
I wonder if someone will make such an offer to George Bush and Tony Blair when they face the judge!
Amigocabal
5 May 2005, 03:32
Considering for many years that the US government supported Saddam - he was George Bush Senior’s buddy, what did they expect? The US government could have intervened years ago, but let Saddam continue for years with his killing rampage. As a sign that the world cared about Saddams’ movements, the UN imposed sanctions. "We’ll let the children, the poor and the sick suffer instead - that will show Saddam we despise him".
Saddam broke his deal with the US and now Saddam isn’t playing the game anymore, let’s kill thousands of innocent men, women and children - make them suffer. Maybe when Saddam sees Iraq destroyed - he’ll play the game on the ’good old USA’ terms.
But they’ve underestimated Saddam. He is selfish and greedy like the other world leaders and he will only compromise on his terms. So in the meantime, while dictators argue about oil and money, thousands more innocents will suffer and more misery, depleted uranium and hatred will spread its tentacles through all our countries.