Baghdad, Iraq ? Saddam Hussein personally initiated an attempt to reach a last-minute deal with Washington to avoid the U.S.-led invasion that ousted his regime, a former Iraqi government official said Friday.

The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Iraqi officials had Saddam’s “full consent” when they approached the United States with the deal, offering oil contracts for U.S. companies and open access for U.N. weapons inspectors.

The aide was not part of the national leadership, but his job provided him daily contact with the dictator and insight into the regime’s decision-making process during the past decade and its critical final days.

The former aide’s comments came a day after a Lebanese-American businessman, Imad Hage, confirmed the last-minute offer and said he was the go-between for the Iraqis in approaching the Bush administration.

Hage said the deal fell through because the Iraqis refused to comply with a U.S. demand that Saddam step down.

Hage said that in the 2 1/2 months before U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq on March 20, he had six meetings with the then-head of Iraqi intelligence foreign operations, Hassan al-Obeidi, and the director of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Haboush, and had passed on details of his discussions to contacts at the Pentagon.

Asked in the interview Thursday whether the Iraqi officials were acting for Saddam or on their own, he replied: “Given my understanding and everybody’s understanding of Iraq, I don’t think a person of the caliber of Dr. al-Obeidi could come to Lebanon without the knowledge of his higher-ups.”

It was impossible to immediately confirm the statement from the aide about Saddam’s involvement.

Most of Saddam’s cronies from the Baath Party leadership either have been captured and are being held incommunicado, or are hiding inside or outside Iraq.

In Washington, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Thursday that during the run-up to the war, a variety of people sent signals — via foreign intelligence services, other governments and third parties — that some Iraqis might want to negotiate.

All leads that were “plausible and even some that weren’t” were followed up, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But no one offering a deal was in a position to make an acceptable one, the official said.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said: “We never received any legitimate or credible opportunity to resolve the world’s differences with Iraq in a peaceful manner.

“What we did see were vague overtures through third parties that appeared to be focused on attempts to forestall military action.”

And while the ex-Saddam aide said the dictator had approved the overture to the Americans, it remained unclear whether Saddam was sincere.