SubscribeSaddam Paid For Jim McDermott’s ‘02 Junket
From a shocked Associated Press:
Feds: Saddam financed lawmakers’ 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.
The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution.
Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
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."
Both McDermott and Thompson are popular among liberal voters in their reliably Democratic districts for their anti-war views. Bonior is no longer in Congress…
Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, then the second-ranking Senate Republican, said the Democrats "sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government." Seattle-area conservatives dubbed McDermott "Baghdad Jim" for the Iraq trip…
Al-Hanooti was arrested Tuesday night while returning to the U.S. from the Middle East, where he was looking for a job, his attorney, James Thomas, said. Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. He was being held on $100,000 bail.
Between 1999 and 2006, he worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a charity formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided the charity’s headquarters in 2006 but charged nobody and allowed the agency to continue operating.
McDermott identified that charity as the group financing the Iraq trip. In House disclosure forms, he put the cost at $5,510. Thompson also understood the charity to be financing the trip, spokeswoman Anne Warden said.
Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam’s government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq…
Gee, what a stunning revelation. Top Democrats (aka useful idiots) were colluding with our country’s enemies.
Of course this outrageous scandal will cost the Democrats the White House and Congress in the next elections.
(Isn’t it fun to pretend we live in a just and rational world now and then?)
25 Responses to “Saddam Paid For Jim McDermott’s ‘02 Junket”
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March 27th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Add to this yesterday’s WSJ Editorial, which went unnoticed as well:
A FARC Fan’s Notes
March 25, 2008; Page A22
A hard drive recovered from the computer of a killed Colombian guerrilla has offered more insights into the opposition of House Democrats to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
A military strike three weeks ago killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia’s most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.
Mr. McGovern’s press office says the Congressman is merely working at the behest of families whose relatives are held as FARC kidnap hostages. However, his go-between’s letters reveal more than routine intervention. The intervenor with the FARC is James C. Jones, who the Congressman’s office says is a “development expert and a former consultant to the United Nations.” Accounts of Mr. Jones’s exchanges with the FARC appeared in Colombia’s Semana magazine on March 15. This Mr. Jones should not be confused with the former Congressman and ambassador to Mexico of the same name from Oklahoma.
“Receive my warm greetings, as always, from Washington,” Mr. Jones began in a letter to the rebels last fall. “The big news is that I spoke for several hours with the Democratic Congressman James McGovern. In the meeting we had the opportunity to exchange some ideas that will be, I believe, of interest to the FARC-EP [popular army].”
Mr. Jones added that “a fundamental problem is that the FARC does not have, strategically, a spokesman that can communicate directly with persons of influence in my country like Mr. McGovern.” Semana reports that in the documents Mr. Jones “rules himself out as the spokesman but offers himself as a ‘bridge’ of communication between the FARC and the congressman.” Semana says when it spoke with Mr. Jones, he verified the letter and explained that “he made the offer because the guerrillas need interlocutors if they want to achieve peace and that it is a mistake to isolate them.”
But communications among FARC rebels suggest the goal was to isolate Colombia’s government. A letter that Reyes wrote to top FARC commander Manuel Marulanda on October 26 reads: “According to [Jones's] viewpoint, [President Álvaro] Uribe is increasingly discredited in the U.S. . . He believes that the safe haven [for the rebels] in the counties can be had for reasons mentioned. Congressional Democrats have invited him to Washington to talk about the Colombian crisis in which the principal theme is the swap.”
Semana reports that Mr. Jones made some proposals to the FARC, including a Caracas meeting with representatives of Venezuela, Colombia, the FARC, other South American countries, U.S. Congressmen and the Catholic Church. “It would be almost impossible for Uribe to reject such a meeting,” Mr. Jones wrote, “without burning himself a lot, nationally and internationally. If he persists in being against it, I have understood that there are ways to pressure him from my country [the U.S.].”
In a letter to Semana, Mr. Jones said his words were taken out of context. He says he is not in favor of the “violent methods of the guerrilla” or “the military solutions” of the government. He had only a professional relationship with the FARC and had to address them as he did because he had to build trust. Mr. McGovern’s office says it knew what Mr. Jones was doing and engaged with him because “we need to find an interlocutor who could discuss these things including the safe haven” for the guerrillas.
We think the documents reveal something else entirely: Some Democrats oppose the Colombia trade deal because they sympathize more with FARC’s terrorists than with a U.S. antiterror ally.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:29 am
“The plight of the Iraqi children”? As a former child, I take umbrage at this ubsurd dodge……..Why is it that the Democrates are always hiding benind some kid’s diapers?….These are the same type of miscreants that cite: “for the children” when supporting expansion of gambling in our Great State of Illinois…(It’s good “for the children” when Daddy loses the house…) Using kids as a moral shield is disgusting…….
Are these guys still in office? Shame on the Republican Party if they do not properly manage this information come reelection time to oust these individuals…….
March 27th, 2008 at 11:42 am
“Interlocutor”? Sounds like congressman McGovern (D) and Mr. Jones compared notes.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
TheChicagoWay says…“Are these guys still in office?”
“Baghdad Jim” McDermott (http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/)
Mike Thompson (http://mikethompson.house.gov/)
are both still cozy in Washington.
Bonior is currently chair of American Rights at Work. On December 28, 2006, former U.S. Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election and appointed Bonior as his campaign manager.[
March 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
USEFUL IDIOTS indeed…
Thanks to EVA and Noyzmakr for the additional content.
From the Party driven by the Moonbats who see the USA as the problem!
Nearly everyday, we see the CHUMP-skys trying to defeat thisSad historic FREE Democracy with Civil Rights, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Women’s Liberty, etc., etc…
But there is cause for celebration, as Saddam won’t be playing the game anymore.
Thank you Mr. President, and the mighty US ARMED FORCES.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
If anyone of us was invited to meet Saddam Hussein, would you think the first question is “who’s paying for it?”
Oh wait, McDerMutt is a US Congressman. He doesn’t care where money comes from.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Baghdad Jim McDermott says…
So how does it feel to be used as a propaganda tool against your own country? McDermott, who was asked that question by CNN’s Jane Arraf when he was still in Baghdad, said it feels fine. “If being used means that we’re highlighting the suffering of Iraqi children, or any children, then, yes, we don’t mind being used.”
Treason!!!!! Need I say more?
March 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Double agents. They need to be tried for treason.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Petra says…. “They need to be tried for treason.”
You and I both know that will never happen. They won’t even get a slap on the wrist from the ethical commitee in congress.
They should at least be tossed out of congress, but both their districts are SO commie that they will have a seat as long as they breath our Free, fresh air.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Now that it is clear these Congressmen were de facto foreign agents for the Iraqi government in 2002, do they have to register as such? Can a person be a Congressman and a registered foreign agent? Didn’t they have to submit travel expense reports to Congress, which they signed and verified? Don’t they have to amend those reports at this time to reflect they were not just traveling as anti-American propagandists but as paid advocates for a repressive foreign government hostile to the United States? Do they have to amend their tax returns? This obviously was not a charity trip. It did not advance the interests of the United States. They were, at best, the paid stooges of Saddam Hussein.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Trialdog
Please remember you are speaking about democrats…
March 27th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
“Isn’t it fun to pretend we live in a just and rational world now and then?”
Honestly, no. I find the crash landing back on Earth to be so devastating.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Baghdad Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson……..weren’t these guys pall bearers at Saddam’s funeral? ‘T was only a goodwill gesture, I’m sure.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Share this video…Support free speech in the Netherlands.
Warning, will evoke extreme emotions.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d9_1206624103
March 27th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Send that video to all the leftist apologists you know.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
After watching that you might want something to compare the souls of those people too. Here is a funny video of some of our soldiers having fun. Very funny
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=66d_1205882394
March 27th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Chicago beat me to it, As soon as I read the part about doing it for the children, I knew they are tossing their trump card.
Lieing sniveling cowards all 3.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Isn’t McDermott the Gingrich telephone tape guy?
March 27th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
U NO HOO says….“Isn’t McDermott the Gingrich telephone tape guy?”
You got it!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0.....premecourt
March 27th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
From IPT News:
More gifts…
And…I was just over at the DU and they’re posting Article VI: …no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. A couple of the sharper ones are copping on to what’s really going down… All McCain has to do is keep on doing what he’s doing…
Operation Chaos! lol
[Moved to its own thread.]
March 28th, 2008 at 4:11 am
Interesting that Hanooti would network just with Democrats. Why are these liberal Democrats so gullible and ready to sell us out?! Maybe it is just that—a fatal naivete and gullibility, the result of living in a bubble of denial. Oftentimes, a conservative is a liberal that got mugged…..the bubble burst!
March 28th, 2008 at 5:07 am
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Democrats: Hate America first; ask questions later.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Judge: $1M in Legal Fees for Boehner - McDermott
By MATTHEW DALY – 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge says House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, can collect more than $1 million in his lawsuit against Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington state.
The decision was issued in a decade-long dispute over an illegally taped telephone call. In the 1996 call, Republican leaders discussed an ethics case against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. A Florida couple recorded the cell phone call on a radio scanner and McDermott leaked the tape to two newspapers.
Boehner sued and a federal court found that McDermott had no right to release the calls. The Supreme Court decided in December not to revisit the case.
McDermott called the court fight with Boehner “a long and costly battle,” but said the million-dollar judgment was “a small price to pay in defense of so fundamental a principle, and freedom, as the First Amendment.”
http://ap.google.com/article/A.....wD8VP65881
Paybacks a bitch! heh
April 1st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Do the words “campaign finance reform” mean anything to ya’ Jim? You’re such a stalwart supporter of the First Amendment that I expect to see you introduce a bill negating that portion of McCain-Feingold sometime next week. Anyone using “democrat” and “ethics” in the same sentence had ought to be taken out and shot with a shit-pistol. Buffoons!
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:41 am
I seriously wonder how much traction this story will get tomorrow in the MSM? Can you say zero?
If you really want to be PO’d, here are your tax dollars at work, courtesy of McDermott’s own taxpayer subsidized website. What a maroon!!
Core American values?? Bwaahaahaahaahahahaha…..!!!!!
You illegally obtain a tape of another citizen and illegally release it to the press and that’s considered a “core American value”..????
Jeez?? What’s next?? Conservatives must surrender all their constitutional rights because they’re
conservative??
Friggin’ libtard moonbats..!!