- WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday he
- would back giving Saddam Hussein and other top Iraqi
leaders immunity
- from possible war crimes charges if they would step down
and accept
- exile to avert a US-led war.
-
- "To avoid a war I would personally recommend that
some provision be
- made so that the senior leadership and their families
could be provided
- haven in some other country," Rumsfeld said on ABC
television's "This
- Week" program.
-
- "I think that that would be a fair trade to avoid
a war."
-
- Rumsfeld was responding to a question about whether the
United States
- would support reported Arab initiatives aimed at convincing
Saddam to
- leave power voluntarily.
-
- US officials have over recent weeks said they would not
oppose efforts
- to send Saddam into exile, but have insisted that Washington
is not
- promoting the idea itself.
-
- Rumsfeld's comments are the strongest public backing
of the exile and
- amnesty plan to date.
-
- Time magazine reported Thursday that Iraq's neighbors
were working to
- orchestrate Saddam's ouster in a plan that would include
an sweeping
- amnesty for senior officials.
-
- It said both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Turkish
Prime
- Minister Abdullah Gul met this week with Saudi Arabia's
de facto
- leader, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, to discuss
the plan.
-
- Gul, in an interview with the New York Times published
Saturday,
- confirmed the topic had been discussed.
-
- "It was one of many ideas that were talked about,"
he said.
|
