Washington, Jan 20: Top Bush administration officials have said they would welcome Saddam Hussein seeking exile outside Iraq, saying it could avert military action to topple the Iraqi president.

Also, Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the New York headquarters of the United Nations to meet with foreign ministers of Security Council members about Saddam and the Iraq problem.
His first two meetings were with the foreign ministers of China and France, two of the many countries who are not convinced the time is right to use force against Iraq.

North Korea's revived nuclear weapons programme also was on the agenda for Powell's separate meetings with China's Tang Jiaxuan and France's Dominique De Villepin. And Powell met for the first time with Mexico's new foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Dervez.

"Everyone stressed the importance of disarming Iraq," Powell's spokesman, Richard Boucher, said. Powell told them that after the inspectors make a report on January 27, the Security Council should decide on what action to take to achieve disarmament, Boucher said. In the meantime, reports of averting war by removing Saddam from Baghdad continued to circulate, and top bush administration officials encouraged that option.

"To avoid a war, I would be personally - would recommend that some provision be made so that the senior leadership in that country and their families could be provided haven in some other country,'' defence secretary Donald H Rumsfeld said on ABC television. "And I think that that would be a fair trade to avoid a war." Bureau Report