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Saddam turned down last-minute Russian 'call to go'

MOSCOW April 12. The veteran Kremlin envoy pleaded with the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, to step down only three days before the U.S. big guns opened up on Baghdad. The Iraqi strongman heard Yevgeny Primakov out, patted him on the shoulder...and then walked out of the room without another word.

Mr. Hussein's defiant answer to Russia's last-minute top-secret mission to stave off the U.S.-led offensive against Iraq emerged late yesterday from Mr. Primakov, a former Russian Prime Minister and old friend of Iraq who had known Mr. Hussein for years.

Mr. Primakov (73), said the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, sent him on the make-or-break mission on March 17 — only three days before the the U.S.-led offensive opened up and sealed Mr. Hussein's fate.

Recalling on Russian television his dramatic, last encounter with Mr. Hussein in one of his palaces, Mr. Primakov said: ``I told him this, "If you love your country and love your people...and if you want to save your people from these sacrifices, you must leave your post as president of Iraq'.''

``I told him that I understood how difficult this proposal was for him and how it could change his life, but that he had to understand that he was doing this for Iraq, for his motherland,'' Mr. Primakov said. He did not say if he suggested Mr. Hussein go into exile or whether he proposed a specific country for him to go to. The Kremlin has always denied Mr. Hussein was offered shelter in Russia. Looking back on Friday on his March mission, he said the proposal he put to Mr. Hussein at first met stony silence. ``First he listened to me, without a word. Then he said that during the first Gulf War we also tried to talk him into something, but a land operation turned out to be unavoidable all the same,'' Mr. Primakov said. ``He then patted me on the shoulder and walked out.''

— Reuters

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