War-crimes...

With time running out, Saddam Hussein's government tried desperately to avert war by negotiating through back channels with Bush administration officials.

They were summarily rebuffed.

Or, as Richard Perle—hawk, neoconservative, resident fellow at the rightwing American Enterprise Institute and former chairman and current member of the Defense Policy Board—told the NY Times, "The message was, `Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.' "

How do you like that, “we?” This whole Iraqi tragedy wouldn’t have happened if sorry-assed old rich men, like Perle, Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz had to patrol the streets of Baghdad with M16s.

But I digress.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.

Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.

[…]

…Mr. Obeidi [chief of foreign operations of the Iraqi Intelligence Service] explained that the Iraqis wanted to cooperate with the Americans and could not understand why the Americans were focused on Iraq rather than on countries, like Iran, that have long supported terrorists, Mr. Hage [the Lebanese-American businessman] said. The Iraqi seemed desperate, Mr. Hage said, "like someone who feared for his own safety, although he tried to hide it."

Mr. Obeidi told Mr. Hage that Iraq would make deals to avoid war, including helping in the Mideast peace process. "He said, if this is about oil, we will talk about U.S. oil concessions," Mr. Hage recalled. "If it is about the peace process, then we can talk. If this is about weapons of mass destruction, let the Americans send over their people. There are no weapons of mass destruction."

Why have Iraqis so seriously underestimated the American capacity for treachery? In 1990, Saddam Hussein believed U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, when she announced that America had no interest in “territorial disputes between Iraq and its Arab neighbors.” Four months later, he invaded Kuwait.

Thirteen years later, his flunkies trusted Richard Perle, leading proponent of the invasion of Iraq, to plead their case against war to the Bush administration.

Did they not know who they were talking to? Might as well ask Satan to relay your repentance to God.

Perle is now downplaying the importance of his contact with Mr. Hage, claiming disbelief that the overture was authentic. No matter. Principled men grasp at any straw to avoid the sort of bloodshed that occurred in Iraq.

The men in the Bush White House are anything but principled.

Justice demands that those responsible for the lies and manipulation that led to the slaughter in Iraq be tried for war-crimes.

Complete story here.