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Rumsfeld: Saddam exile could avoid war
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that exile for Saddam Hussein and other members of the Iraqi leadership would be a "fair trade" to avoid a military conflict. "I ... would recommend that some provision be made so that the senior leadership in that country and their families could be provided haven in some other country," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "This Week." "I think that that would be a fair trade to avoid a war." "I think that the people in his country know what a vicious regime [Saddam] runs. And they may decide to throw him out," he said. "He and his family may decide that they've run their string and that they'll leave. ... Certainly, either of those courses would be preferable to the use of force." Rumsfeld's comments came as the two top U.N. weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, met with Iraqi officials in Baghdad to press for more cooperation in the search for weapons of mass destruction. (Full story) Secretary of State Colin Powell, echoing recent comments by President Bush, said Sunday that Iraq was running out of time to comply with U.N. resolutions demanding it disarm. "The record so far is not a good record, and they have very little time left to make it a good record," Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CNN's "Late Edition." "If you say you're clean, then come clean. Time is running out. We can't keep hunting and pecking and trying to see if we can find something." The Iraqis "have not established, to my satisfaction ... that they are moving in good faith to disarm," Powell said, citing last week's discovery of 12 empty chemical warheads at an ammunition dump south of Baghdad. The secretary said he did not believe Iraqi assertions that they had overlooked their presence. "How many other slips are there out there? It's not a slip," Powell said. "They knew they were there. Somebody knew they were there." Rumsfeld said the question wasn't what the inspectors find in Iraq but rather how well the Iraqi government cooperates. "The only way the inspectors can find anything is if the Iraqi government cooperates and shows it to them," Rumsfeld told reporters. "Inspectors can't find things. They can only inspect what they've been shown." And, Rumsfeld said, Iraq has shown little cooperation. "Thus far, they have filed a false declaration of what they have," he said. "They have refused to file the list of the scientists that they are required to provide so that they can be taken out of the country and talked to in safety with their families and won't be killed by Saddam Hussein, as he did kill his sons-in-law after they came back into the country." The Senate's top Democrat, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, urged restraint. "I don't know that [the weapons inspectors] are achieving the results that we expected, but that's why they need more time," he told CNN. "We've got to do what they've requested, and that's to give them more time ... before we consider any alternative action."
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