Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt ? Arab leaders said Friday they couldn’t ask one of their own — Iraq’s Saddam Hussein — to leave office, despite advice from the United States and the feeling among many in the region that it’s the only way to avert war.

Privately, however, Arab diplomats said the idea had been informally discussed ahead of an Arab League summit that convenes today in this Red Sea resort to debate what to do about the Iraq crisis.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Arab leaders to emerge from their summit with a call on Saddam to “step down and get out of the way and let some responsible leadership take over in Baghdad.”

But Egypt, which was the main force behind moving up the annual summit of Arab leaders, underlined that the Arab League could not issue such a call.

“We are not in the business of changing the regime of one country or another,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Friday. “We can only ask all parties to abide by international resolutions in order to avoid war.”

Many Arab leaders are convinced the United States is determined to topple Saddam. Some think if they were to move to get him to step down peacefully, they would be in a better position to help shape the profound changes to the region expected from a war.

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the summit leaders might send a high-level delegation to Baghdad carrying a message to Saddam with vague suggestions he quit.

In Washington, a senior Arab diplomat said the Arab League might send a delegation to Baghdad to urge Saddam to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Ali al-Treiki, Libya’s representative to the summit preparatory meeting, said, “It is up to the Iraqi people to decide, not to the Arab summit or to Mr. Powell.”

Iraq’s Foreign Minister Naji Sabri described Powell’s remarks as “silly and trivial.”

The deeply divided foreign ministers, who have been working on a final statement for the summit, were unable to agree on an early draft and appointed a committee to come up with another version.

Some countries, like Kuwait, argue that war is inevitable and say the focus should be on planning for the aftermath. A second camp, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, argues war can be avoided if Iraq cooperates fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. A third camp, led by Syria, wants Arabs to rally around Iraq and produce a summit declaration opposed to war.