BAGHDAD, February 25 (IslamOline.net & News Agencies) – As Baghdad denied that the Russian envoy discussed with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein going into exile, the U.S. kept pushing for the proposal as a possible way to avert the looming war.

Former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov met the Iraqi leader on Sunday, February 23, amid increasing Russian resistance to U.S. threats to use military strikes to force Saddam to disarm.

But Iraqi officials stressed Tuesday the issue has not be raised during the meeting, dismissing all exile scenarios as "dirty rumors".

"No Iraqi leader intends to leave Baghdad, and no normal self-respecting man would ever propose that to our president," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Information Minister Mohamed Sayyed Al-Sahaf as saying.

Primakov came to express his solidarity with the Iraqi people regarding the criminal politics of the United States, which has heavy consequences on the region and the entire world," he added.

Addressing the Hoover Institute on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the issue of exile was not such a bad idea after all.

Washington had repeatedly said it would consider accepting the Iraqi leadership's exile in an effort to avoid war.

U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice floated the option again after Britain presented a tough new U.S.-backed resolution to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, February 25.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair also called Tuesday on Saddam either to comply with disarmament resolutions or leave the country during one of his strangely confident speeches before the parliament.

But whether war actually is about Saddam or that the Washington is exploiting the issue as an excuse to trigger the war, is still up to many speculations.

With U.S. and British forces deployed around Iraq for a possible military aggression, Saddam is once again caught between the hammer and the anvil.

He saw his troops expelled from a seven-month occupation of Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition during the 1991 Gulf War.

Then came the resumption of inspections in November after a four-year hiatus to add dimension to the international supervision already slapped on Iraq, notably through the control of its oil exports by the United Nations.

Now, the United States and Britain have amassed troops in anticipation of a fresh assault to topple his regime, which Washington and London accuse of possessing and developing weapons of mass destruction.

In another step making the case for war against Saddam, the Kuwaiti interior minister accused the Iraqi leader of encouraging "terrorist" acts in Kuwait and using his embassies in the Gulf states to collect intelligence.

Although many of the world-wide demonstrators are against U.S hawkish approach to Iraq, they feel less sympathetic with Saddam, to no one's surprise given a long criminal record against his innocent people.

But Saddam still found a benefit with a rift among world powers on how to deal with Iraq intensifying.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana admitted Monday that European countries failed to find a ground on Iraq after a Monday night’s bickering at the bloc's headquarters in Brussels.

France also submitted to the Security Council a counter-proposal to the tough-worded one presented by Britain.

The French proposal, supported by China, Russia and Germany, calls to boost inspections in Iraq as the use of force is yet still "unjustified".

But the firm "No" to the war threats seemed not to inch Washington and staunch ally London from its calls for "inevitable" war.

No wonder Saddam Hussein "finds himself in a yet tighter corner," a diplomat in Baghdad told AFP.

He noted that the disarmament envisaged by the United Nations, if it profoundly damages Iraq's military capability, will leave in place a political, police, tribal and clan structure that can ensure the survival of the regime.

And it's for that reason that diplomats in Baghdad remain confident that Saddam will continue to accept U.N. demands for disarmament, notably the latest declaration that the medium--range Al-Samoud missiles are banned and must be destroyed.

Iraq, however, remained defiant, asserting that it was left with no choice but to take up arms against an imminent U.S.-led war.

Saddam insisted in a rare U.S. television interview that the missiles did not breach U.N. conditions on their range.

Saddam's challenge to U.S. President George W. Bush in the CBS interview to join him in an all-American-style televised debate added another dimension to the surreal side of a leader re-elected last October with 100 percent of the vote on a 100 percent turnout.

"This will be an opportunity for him, if he's committed to war, this will be an opportunity to convince the world," Saddam said.

The White House dismissed the proposal.

But Saddam still bent on his abilities to keep a space for compromise, as his top scientific advisor said that a U.N. demand for the destruction of the Al-Samoud missiles was "still under study."