Sunday, March 02, 2003
HAS KIM JONG-IL OFFERED ASYLUM TO SADDAM HUSSEIN? Stanley Ho Hung-sun, "the wealthy magnate who runs Macau's gambling casinos," claims he has.
Chinese billionaires like Ho do not always possess political acumen but it is usually difficult to take them for a ride. Ho told the SCMP that senior level North Korean officials "told me that there really was a chance to prevent a war and (they) said that Saddam Hussein could step down two days before the US and Britain started to bomb Iraq and he (Saddam) could call democratic elections".
Ho goes on to say that "one of the conditions of those elections would be that none of the candidates would be allowed funding from the US, ensuring that there was no American interference in a future Iraqi democratic state. Anyone who did accept money from the US would be shot"--presumably by a Saddam who had not entirely stepped down prior to the election.
Ho extolled this initiative by saying that "it could be (Saddam Hussein's) trump card. North Korea is willing to give Saddam and his family a mountain in North Korea."
Probably too weird to be true.
