Did you know: Saddam offered to surrender before the war?

[grytpype]

I wrote this dkos diary a year ago... and it's even more relevant now.

Now that Bush's WMD stories have been proven to be 100% "dead wrong," -- even to the extent Bush has had to admit it, after struggling for months to keep hope alive...

And now that 53% of the public believes the war was not worth the cost...

I think this is an ideal moment to widely publicize the fact that Saddam offered to surrender, almost a total capitulation, before the war. He offered to let thousands of US troops into the country to search for WMD, and even offered to hold monitored elections in two years.

But Bush and Cheney both personally refused these offers and took America to war. They could have had everything the war achieved -- confirmation of no WMD and elections in two years -- for no cost, and they preferred war!

I think it's time to discuss that decision. To force Bush and Cheney to explain that decision. And that can be done, if the blogosphere picks up the story.

Source: Guardian United, Saddam's desperate offers to stave off war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1079769,00.html

Washington dismissed Iraq's peace feelers, including elections and weapons pledge, put forward via diplomatic channels and US hawk Perle

Julian Borger in Washington, Brian Whitaker and Vikram Dodd
Friday November 7, 2003
The Guardian

In the few weeks before its fall, Iraq's Ba'athist regime made a series of increasingly desperate peace offers to Washington, promising to hold elections and even to allow US troops to search for banned weapons. But the advances were all rejected by the Bush administration, according to intermediaries involved in the talks.

...

Iraqi intelligence was also offering privately to allow several thousand US troops into the country to take part in the search for banned weapons.

Baghdad even proposed staging internationally-monitored elections within two years.

"All these offers had at bottom the same thing - that Saddam would stay in power, and that was unacceptable to the administration," Mr Cannistraro said. "There were serious attempts to cut a deal but they were all turned down by the president and vice president."