Spokesman suggests assassination of Hussein would be welcome

WASHINGTON -- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer suggested Tuesday that the Bush administration would welcome an assassination of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by Iraqi citizens, an unusually blunt comment from an official at the White House podium.

At his regular briefing, Fleischer was asked about a Congressional Budget Office report estimating it would cost $9 billion to $13 billion to deploy troops to the region and a further $6 billion to $9 billion a month to fight a war.

Fleischer dismissed cost estimates as speculative, since President Bush has yet to decide whether to use military force against Iraq.

"I can only say that the cost of a one-way ticket is substantially less than that," Fleischer said, apparently referring to exile for Hussein. "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than that. The cost of war is more than that."

Pressed on whether he was advocating political assassination, Fleischer responded, "Regime change is welcome in whatever form that it takes."

Fleischer's unexpected endorsement of the slaying of a foreign leader came as the Bush administration was negotiating in Congress and the United Nations over separate resolutions that Bush hopes will give him broad military authority to attack Iraq if Hussein fails to dismantle his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

Speaking rhetorically

Fleischer later said he was speaking rhetorically. But he added, "The point is that if the Iraqis took matters in their own hands, no one around the world would shed a tear."

Administration officials let stand the impression that Fleischer's comments are in step with White House thinking about Iraq. Officials did not order the spokesman to retract his comments as they did in February, when Fleischer suggested that former President Bill Clinton's failed efforts to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led to more violence.