War alternatives were exhausted, officials insist
WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials insisted yesterday that the US government did everything possible to forestall a US-led invasion of Iraq, even as some intelligence officials asserted that many key war aims could have been achieved without any fighting had the White House pursued a series of secret overtures believed to be from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Hussein sought on numerous occasions to cut a deal to avoid war, including at least five specific proposals floated through foreign governments friendly to the United States and at least two through the back channels of global intelligence, current and former intelligence officials said. But all were rebuffed -- many before even reaching the ears of decision makers -- because they failed to meet President Bush's bottom line: the removal of Hussein.
"Look, there was simply no need for back-door contacts," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters yesterday. "The front door was wide open. If people wanted to communicate with us, they knew how to do that. There were lots of channels and ways for them to do that. Saddam Hussein could have gone to the world and said he was leaving his country and averted this military action."
Added Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "The regime of Saddam Hussein had ample -- well beyond ample -- opportunity to avoid war."
Some intelligence officials said they doubted that the overtures were anything more than attempts by Hussein to buy more time to thwart a US-led attack. But others suggested the United States might have been able to achieve its core war aims through negotiations if it had not insisted on Hussein's removal.
One former intelligence official said that the Iraqis, working through several mediators, appeared to be willing to satisfy what they viewed as Washington's two principal concerns: Full inspections of all sites related to weapons of mass destruction -- which Iraqi officials maintained no longer existed -- and severing any links with global terrorist groups.
Iraq's overtures to the US apparently culminated in a meeting between a Lebanese-American businessman with contacts in Hussein's intelligence service and Richard Perle, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and a longtime critic of the Iraqi regime. Perle met the businessman, Imad Hage, in London. Perle told The New York Times that he relayed an offer, purportedly from Hussein, to the CIA, which showed no interest.
Hage's offer, purportedly from the Iraqi government, proposed allowing American investigators into the country to search for suspected weapons of mass destruction, and handing over an Iraqi national, Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was indicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, officials said. The proposal also raised the prospect that Iraq would hold free elections at a future date.
"But they [the overtures] were not pursued because Saddam would stay in power," one former intelligence official said.
Hage, in an interview yesterday in Beirut with the Associated Press, said he thought war might have been avoided if the Americans had been more open to negotiation. "I think there was an opportunity," Hage said.
Perle, traveling in Germany yesterday, could not be reached for comment.
One intelligence official said he had been approached by a third-party negotiator, saying he could offer a proposal on behalf of Hussein. He declined to give details, but said he reported the encounter to the State Department, where an official told him the White House would not entertain any deal that did not include regime change.
On multiple occasions in February and March, Bush said regime change was his bottom line. Within the administration, officials said, it was well known that any deal allowing Hussein to remain in power was a nonstarter.
"During the run-up to the war, there were a wide variety of people sending signals that some Iraqis might have an interest in negotiating," said a US intelligence official who asked not to be named. Among the intermediaries, he said, were foreign intelligence services and governments, as well as various individuals, some of whom were deemed to lack credibility. He maintained that every lead that was "at all plausible and others that weren't" were followed up but deemed unworthy.
He added: "I am aware of no one in a position to make any deal anywhere near acceptable to the United States government who offered such a deal."
Overtures were relayed by Germany, France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, among other countries, officials said.
