Big News Network.com
Sunday 1st May, 2005 Arab nations are rife with reports U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has offered to free Saddam Hussein.
The UK-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi claims Rumsfeld, in what was described as a surprise visit to Iraq two weeks ago, visited Saddam Hussein in prison and offered him freedom and a possible return to public life, provided he went public with a call for insurgents to cease their attacks.
According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi Saddam promptly rejected the offer.
The story has only been published at this point in a limited number of Arab publications, including al-Jazeera, although the Israeli newspaper Ynetnews has also run it. The Times of India, India's major daily newspaper has also picked the story up. Al-Quds Al-Arabi say they sourced the story from Iraqi Baath sources in Jordan.
Saddam is awaiting trial on war crimes. Ironically whilst accused for several years of ignoring or refusing to comply with UN resolutions, extensive investigations by U.S. inspectors have largely cleared him of these charges, concluding he largely complied with the resolutions as far back as 1991.
There are concerns in some quarters that a public trial of the deposed dictator will showcase the illegality of the war and lead to serious questions about the actions of those that brought it about.
There is also major concern that the insurgency in Iraq is clearly out of control or perhaps more pointedly, in control. Coalition forces estimate insurgents number somewhere between 8,000 and 17,000, yet a multi-national force which includes 139,000 U.S. troops has failed to quell the attacks.
Rumsfeld first met Saddam when he visited him in Baghdad as special envoy for then-President Ronald Reagan in December 1983.
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