How reliable a source is the “Sunday Mirror”?
Hussein has been in secret negotiations with US forces in Iraq for the past nine days, we can reveal. The Iraqi dictator is demanding safe passage to the former Soviet republic of Belarus. In exchange, he has vowed to provide information on weapons of mass destruction and disclose bank accounts where he siphoned off tens of millions of dollars in plundered cash. President Bush is being kept abreast of the extraordinary talks by his National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice. She is co-ordinating negotiations in Baghdad which are led by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of American forces in Iraq. Saddam's English-speaking representative walked into the US HQ at Tikrit - the dictator's home town - on September 12 and asked to talk to senior officers. He then led a group of US troops to a nearby suburb where one of Saddam's loyal security chiefs was waiting. The US officers were handed a hand-written note, purportedly from Saddam himself. The security boss had a British-made Racal military radio set which he claimed gave him direct contact with people in the same room as the dictator. The radio is notoriously difficult to monitor. He was immediately taken into custody, but the US has continued to exchange messages with Saddam using the radio and other means. http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/news/co...-name_page.html
I think this is good news if true. It certainly is interesting. Belarus sounds like a plausible choice, the promise to reveal information on WMDs suggests Saddam has indeed been withholding something. I doubt the disclosure of secret bank accounts is of any great concern. The paper suggests the Americans will just “string him along” until they can draw a bead on Saddam and then take him down.