...Kurdish groups said they had received secret approaches from military commanders offering to turn their weapons on Saddam when the war began.

They said members of the al-Majid clan, the pillar of Saddam's tribal power base, had made contact to seek assurances about their fate.

These signs of fragmentation indicate for the first time that Saddam's senior lieutenants believe that the United States and Britain are serious about toppling him.
...
American officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, have recently spoken of Iraqis eliminating Saddam themselves, either through assassination or by sending him into exile.

Last week, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said: "The cost of a one-way ticket is substantially less than [the cost of war]. The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than that."

» Saddam's inner circle is defecting, say Iraqi exiles