Saddam Paid for Lawmakers' Trip

In a stunning announcement in connection with the indictment of a Michigan charity official, Federal prosecutors said yesterday that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein secretly financed a Congressional trip to Iraq in the run up to the Iraq War. The trip was undertaken by three anti-war Democrats in the month before the Congressional vote on the authorization to use military force against Iraq. Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA), and Mike Thompson (D-CA), and then Rep. David Bonior (D-MI) visited Iraq on the trip arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, the subject of the Federal indictment. For his efforts, Saddam Hussein's intelligence services rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of oil.

The Congressmen were not charged with any wrongdoing in the indictment, but the revelation is a huge political embarrassment for the Democratic Party. Democrats supported the war resolution in 2002, but quickly recanted on their votes once the situation in Iraq became difficult. The party is now mostly anti-war, gaining control of Congress in 2006 partly on a promise to end the war in Iraq. Now, the revelation that three members of the Democratic caucus were used in a scheme by Saddam's intelligence services in a blatant attempt to influence the result of the Congressional authorization vote will likely cement the notion that the Democratic Party has been and is playing politics with the war.

Bonior is no longer a member of Congress. McDermott and Thompson issued statements defending their actions. Through a spokesman, McDermott said, "Obviously, we didn't know it at the time. The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That's the only reason we went." Thompson stressed that the trip was official in nature, noting that it was approved by the State Department. "Obviously, had there been any question at all regarding the sponsor of the trip or the funding, I would not have participated," he said. McDermott, considered the leader of the anti-war Democrats in the House, was harshly criticized at the time for going on the trip. Derisive Republican colleagues and commentators dubbed him "Baghdad Jim."

The revelation has echoes of the Oil for Food Scandal at the United Nations. After the war, captured Iraqi documents confirmed that Saddam routinely doled out oil considerations to sympathetic and corrupt officials of foreign governments, and the U.N. itself, ostensibly to prevent the world body from taking any action against him and his regime. Russian, French, German, and a few American businessmen and political figures were implicated, as was Benon Sevan, the U.N. official in charge of the Oil for Food Program. The program was supposed to provide food and medical necessities for the Iraqi people from Iraqi oil revenues. But Saddam Hussein quickly infiltrated the program, turning it into his personal slush fund with which to bribe the world into complacency toward his crimes. Yesterday's revelations reveal that Saddam was actively trying to infiltrate the U.S. Congress as well.

McDermott, Thompson, and Bonior may have been unwitting dupes in the scheme. But this is what happens when dictators are coddled. The lawmakers placed themselves in a compromising position by their willingness to see Saddam Hussein as a legitimate ruler worthy respect in furtherance of a political agenda. In so doing, regardless of whether they did anything wrong, they have embarrassed themselves, their party and the institution in which they serve, the United States Congress.