Hussein In The Membrane

This is... interesting:

Saddam Hussein believes the United States will have to seek his help to quell the bloody insurgency in Iraq and open the way for U.S. forces to withdraw, his chief lawyer said Sunday.

Khalil al-Dulaimi argued in an interview with The Associated Press that the former leader is the key to returning stability to Iraq.

''He's their last resort. They're going to knock at his door eventually,'' the lawyer said. Saddam is ''the only person who can stop the resistance against the U.S. troops.''

(snip)

Al-Dulaimi said Saddam brought up the topic during a meeting Tuesday, and indicated he would be willing to help the United States -- ''for the sake of saving both peoples -- the Iraqis and Americans.''

He quoted Saddam as saying:

''These puppets in the Iraqi government that the Americans brought to power are helpless. They can't protect themselves or the Iraqi people. The Americans will certainly come to me, to Saddam Hussein's legitimate leadership and to the Iraqi Baath Party, to rescue them from their huge quandary.''

Although he would not say exactly what Saddam might ask in return for helping, al-Dulaimi said it would not necessarily involve being reinstated as president of Iraq -- a nation he ruled brutally and plunged into three devastating wars.

(snip)

Saddam predicted Iraq would ''flourish within five years,'' saying that was the time that would be needed for reconstruction that would transform the country into the envy of the region, the lawyer said.

(snip)

The Bush administration should recognize the ''hard reality'' that the U.S. invasion of Iraq delivered the mostly secular Arab nation into the hands of Shiites strongly sympathetic to their larger Iranian neighbor, the lawyer said.

''Iran is the enemy of Arabs, Islam and the United States, and the only person who can stand in the face of Iran is Saddam Hussein,'' he said.

You know, I think if they ever met and sat down and had a nice long talk, Bush would look into Saddam's soul and recognize a kindred spirit. They both hate Iran, they both have the same slippery, optimistic grip on reality, and they both have very similar ideas about ruling governing.