THE US/IRAQ: A middle man between Saddam Hussein's intelligence chief and Pentagon advisers said he laid out a possible peace deal in the run-up to the war in Iraq, but the offer was spurned by Washington, according to reports in the US yesterday.
Mr Imad Hage, a prominent Lebanese-American businessman, recounted on television the contacts he said he made that conveyed an Iraqi offer to open negotiations to prevent an invasion.
He said that in February he met Saddam Hussein's former chief of intelligence, Gen Tahir Habbush, and in March Mr Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defence Policy Advisory Board and an influential adviser to senior Pentagon officials.
Mr Hage said that, to avert war, Gen Habbush offered "disarmament" to be validated by US agents and to turn over a senior al-Qaeda operative in custody in Iraq, according to ABC.
Mr Hage met Mr Perle in London in early March. Mr Perle was quoted as saying that he was prepared to meet Iraqi officials to discuss their offer, but was told by the Central Intelligence Agency not to do so.
US officials played down the reports, saying the contact was one of a number of efforts undertaken to avert a war. - (Reuters)