[From Juan Cole's _Informed Comment_ blog. Links to primary sources in original. Text in square brackets inserted by me to connect snippets.]
http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/transcript-reveals-impeachable-offenses.html
<begin excerpt>
[According to the recently released El Pais transcript
of a conversation among Bush, Aznar and Rice on
the eve of the Iraq war], Bush rejected out of hand a
deal brokered by the Egyptians whereby Saddam Hussein would leave the
country with a billion dollars and some documents about his WMD
program. Reuters reports:
'The Egyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he's
indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he's allowed to
take $1 billion and all the information he wants about weapons of
mass destruction," Bush was quoted as saying at the meeting one
month before the U.S.-led invasion.'
The transcript in Spanish then says ([Juan Cole's] translation):
'Aznar: Is it certain that any possibility exists that Saddam
Hussein will go into exile?
Bush: The possibility exists, including that he will be
assassinated.
Aznar: Exile with a guarantee?
Bush: No guarantee! He is a thug, a terrorist, a war criminal.
Bush goes on to say, "Saddam won't change and he'll keep on playing
games. The time has come to get rid of him. That's the way it is. We'll
be in Baghdad by the end of March."
In other words, Bush could have sent Saddam off to exile in Saudi
Arabia and avoided the whole war, but refused to do so because of the
family vendetta between the Bushes and the Tikritis. Nearly 4,000 US
soldiers have died and thousands have been wounded because Bush would
not take the deal Saddam offered him. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
are dead, and millions displaced.
The whole immense catastrophe could have been avoided.
<end excerpt>
The next day Juan Cole offered some commentary about the billion dollars and the documents about the weapons of mass destruction:
http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/bush-aznar-transcript-war-crime-of.html
<begin excerpt>
The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected,
an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia,
presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some
documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Both
provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later
retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and
the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior
administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological
weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was
unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the
reputation of the Bush family if he did. The destruction of these
documents was presumably Bush's goal when he had Rumsfeld order US
military personnel not to interfere with the looting and burning of
government offices after the fall of Saddam. The looting, which set off
the guerrilla war, also functioned as a vast shredding party,
destroying incriminating evidence about the complicity of the Bushes
and Rumsfeld in Iraq's war crimes.
The claims by some pundits that Saddam's reported desire to take
documents on his WMD programs out of the country proves he had such
programs in 2003 or that he wanted to somehow retain specialized
knowledge involved in them, are silly. Saddam had destroyed his
chemical, nuclear and biological programs and stockpiles, which we know
from the most extensive postwar inspections in the history of mammal
life. Almost certainly, he wanted to keep with him the documents that
showed precisely that-- that he was in fact in compliance with UN
resolutions (which he was) and so could not on those grounds be subject
to extraordinary rendition and delivered to the Hague. Also, as I say,
he may well have wanted to keep with him documents with which to
blackmail the Bush family, which in the 1980s had been involved in
winking at and enabling his WMD capabilities.
Aznar asked Bush if he would grant Saddam these guarantees, and Bush
roared back that he would not. (That is the answer to those who want to
know where in the text Bush declines Saddam's offer to flee. Nobody in
his right mind would flee without guarantees; by declining them, Bush
scotched the deal.)
By refusing to allow Saddam to flee with guarantees, Bush ensured that
a land war would have to be fought. This is one of the greatest crimes
any US president ever committed, and it is all the more contemptible
for being rooted in mere pride and petulance.
<end excerpt>
Michael