The United States is talking about asylum for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with a number of nations and the United Nations may need to play a role to "entice him" to take it, a US official said today.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told lawmakers the United States was studying how asylum might be arranged for Saddam and his top lieutenants, including "where, with what protection ... how exactly you would operationalise this."
While US officials have long encouraged Saddam to step down to avert a US-led war to disarm Iraq of its suspected weapons of mass destruction, Mr Powell's remarks were the clearest sign yet that Washington is actively pursuing the matter.
"We are not only discussing it, we are in touch with a number of countries that have expressed an interest in conveying this message to the Iraqi regime that time's up and one way to avoid a lot of suffering is for the regime to step down - Saddam Hussein and his cohorts," Mr Powell said.
"It would ultimately require some kind of United Nations participation in order to make sure that we can do it in a way that would actually entice him to seek asylum," Mr Powell added, without elaborating on what role the UN might play.
The United States has threatened Iraq with war if it fails to give up its suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq denies it has such weapons.
"It is something we are looking at and we recognise the attractiveness of such an option," Mr Powell added. "It avoids a lot of problems and it would have to include him and it would have to include his top level. We would have to get the whole infection out and then get on with the healing process."