Arab leaders to meet in Cairo to avert U.S. attack

Arab foreign ministers have agreed to meet in Cairo this month to prepare for a summit that Arab leaders have pushed in hopes of making a last-ditch effort to head off a U.S.-led attack against Iraq, diplomats said on Wednesday.

While Arab officials acknowledge they have few options left - and some have already begun turning their attention to a war's aftermath - the meetings will likely make a final appeal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussain to cooperate with UN inspectors and consider a mission to Baghdad that could be led by Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, an Arab diplomat said.

"We want to send a message to Iraq and a message to the United States," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "The message is for Iraq to cooperate and for the United States to hold its horses."

At least publicly, Arab countries remain opposed to a U.S.-led attack, at least without the blessing of another UN Security Council resolution, and in recent weeks, they have scrambled to find a solution short of war.

Saudi Arabia, in particular, has pushed forward the idea of a sweeping amnesty for Hussain's top commanders, in part to inspire a coup against him, and Arab officials continue to float what they privately acknowledge is the unlikely prospect of exile for Hussain and his family.

This week, efforts have turned toward moving up an Arab League summit scheduled for March 24. The Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo on February 16, with informal discussions a day earlier, said Hesham Youssef, spokesman for the Arab League secretary-general.

A summit of the 22-member Arab League will then convene in early March, diplomats said. Bahraini officials have agreed to move the summit from Bahrain, headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, to Cairo, where the Arab League is based, the diplomats said.

Already, though, some Arab officials are dismissing the prospects for any real breakthrough. In contrast to the 1991 Gulf war, Arab diplomacy toward Iraq has been noticeably reserved.

Some Arab officials wryly noted that it took Turkey, a non-Arab country, to convene a meeting of Arab foreign ministers last month in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

"What are we going to talk about?" asked one senior Gulf official who did not want to be named. "We'll just sit there and vent out feelings. But nothing will be done." Another Gulf official doubted whether it would even be well attended.

From Egypt to the Gulf, there remains deep anxiety among Iraq's neighbours over the war, particularly its impact on a public deeply resentful of U.S. policy. But they acknowledge they have little influence with Hussain, and even less with the Bush administration.

One senior official said the only options left appeared to be a coup or exile, and neither was likely. Moussa, in an interview on Tuesday with Egypt's Al Akhbar newspaper, expressed "extreme pessimism" that a conflict could be avoided.

Given the limited options, some officials have pressed for Arab governments to turn their attention to preparations for a post-war Iraq.

Arab officials say they believe the Bush administration has not prepared sufficiently for what would follow the overthrow of Hussain's government and may leave Iraq's neighbours to pick up the pieces of a broken country.

That has created a paradox for some of the governments. On the one hand, officials say an American occupation is crucial to keeping Iraq intact and to prevent neighbours like Iran and Turkey from intervening.

But those same officials say that any occupation will only worsen sentiments in the region that have surged since the eruption of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.