Democratic Congressmen Flew to Iraq on Saddam’s Dime
Charles Johnson
Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 9:29 am PDT • Views: 348
Following the indictment of former CAIR-Michigan leader Muthanna Al-Hanooti, more details emerge about Saddam Hussein’s funding of propaganda trips to Iraq—and which US politicians went along on those trips: US: Saddam Paid for Lawmakers’ Iraq Trip.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.
At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.
The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators “have no information whatsoever” any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
“Obviously we didn’t know it at the time,” McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said Wednesday. “The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That’s the only reason we went.”
This article is accompanied by a strange AP file photo of McDermott and Bonior from 2002, which looks like either a Photoshop job or a blue-screen effect.
Frank says: