RIYADH, 18 February 2003 — A leading Saudi newspaper yesterday urged Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to make a "heroic" choice and step down from power to save his country and the whole Middle East from a looming US-led war.
Al-Riyadh said any discussions of the Iraq crisis would fail unless Saddam took the "necessary political decision" to ward off a US attack. "Even if that means Saddam must step down, this is not unprecedented," the daily said in an editorial.
"And Saddam will not be considered defeated if he wants to save Iraq; on the contrary it would be seen as a wise and even heroic decision which may erase previous moral and legal judgements against him."
Al-Riyadh pointed out that for a proposed Arab summit to be successful "Baghdad must realize that the issue is not normal." It said a reasonable stance from Iraq will enable Arabs to unite in dealing with the United States and have an impact on inter-national developments.
"The (Arab) summit will not provide miracles, or resolve complex issues," but through a responsible position by Iraq, it can succeed in transforming the Arab world into an entity that respects itself and the world, the paper said.
Al-Madinah newspaper warned the Iraqi regime against misinterpreting the massive worldwide anti-war demonstrations.
"Most of the catastrophes Iraq and its neighbors have suffered were the result of the (Iraqi) regime’s misinterpretations of events," it warned.
Speculation has been rife that Arab lead-ers had asked Saddam to go into exile to spare the region a devastating war, but offi-cials have denied it and few Arabs believe that the Iraqi leader would step down.
Some Arab officials have said that high-level negotiations were being held to persuade Washington to grant amnesty to Saddam’s top commanders, partly to encourage them to overthrow him in a coup. Arabs fear war would split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines.
The newspaper editorials follow an announcement by Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Sunday that their countries should refuse any support for military action against fellow Arab Iraq. But their call fell short of a binding resolution that would pose difficulties for many Gulf states, which host thousands of US troops prepar-ing for possible war on Iraq over its alleged weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies it has such arms.
