November 6, 2003 - The New York Times is reporting that before the March 19 th decapitation raid that launched the Second Iraqi War Baghdad had opened a so-called back channel using a Lebanese America businessman Imad Hage living in Beirut . Iraqi intelligence officials used this method to pass messages to Richard Perle. Reportedly the Iraqis were offering to cooperate fully with the United States in the war against terrorism; to permit the US to send personnel to Iraq to supervise its disarmament; and to replace the regime with a popularly elected government within two years. The Iraqis reportedly sought face to face meeting with Perle to put their proposed agreements directly to the Administration. Perle now says that he had trouble believing that the Iraqis would use a back channel to make such serious proposals. Tariq Aziz had made the offer to admit FBI disarmament agents in the open at a news conference.

If the account is to be believed, and Perle has apparently confirmed much of the account, the proposals amounted to the kind of capitulation coupled with cosmetic face saving that Douglas Macarthur allowed Japan to use to end World War II. All of the conditions that the Bush Administration said were the objectives of the Second Iraqi War - including the ceding of oil concessions to the US - were there on the table and all the US had to do was pick them up. The Iraqis; Hassan al-Obeidi, chief of foreign operations of the Iraqi Intelligence Service; and Tahir Jalil Habbush, the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service sought to meet with Perle in Beirut to put the settlement propositions directly to Perle.

The meeting never took place. Had it occurred Richard Perle, the Pentagon's Grey Eminence, might well have brought home an Iraqi surrender on American terms without the firing of one shot or the loss of one life. Unfortunately the President and his closest advisors had too much invested in a military solution to be willing to follow up on the Iraqi initiative. Instead of sitting down to explore the back channel Perle walked away and the ship of state edged into the swampy estuary of war.

Might it have been? We will never know. The reality is that 435 grieving coalition families will never know whether a quiet meeting in Beirut might have achieved that which has not yet been achieved by the investment of lives and treasure as the President led the drive to war.