"The Only Thing that Worries Me is Your Optimism"
Report Says Hussein Was Open To Exile Before 2003 Invasion He Is Said to Have Sought $1 Billion and Information on Arms
By Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, September 27, 2007; A17
Less than a month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein signaled that he was willing to go into exile as long as he could take with him $1 billion and information on weapons of mass destruction, according to a report of a Feb. 22, 2003, meeting between President Bush and his Spanish counterpart published by a Spanish newspaper yesterday.
The meeting at Bush's Texas ranch was a planning session for a final diplomatic push at the United Nations. The White House was preparing to introduce a tough new Security Council resolution to pressure Hussein, but most council members saw it as a ploy to gain their authorization for war.
Spain's prime minister at the time, Jose Maria Aznar, expressed hope that war might be avoided -- or at least supported by a U.N. majorit…