Iraq,  Iraq War,  Saddam Hussein

The Three Stooges Go to Iraq

Rep. Jim McDermott, right, D-Wash., and Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., left, are shown during a Capitol Hill news conference in this 2002 file photo. 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.

These members of Congress COULD NOT or WOULD NOT find out who funded their trip to Iraq immediately preceding the start of the Iraq War?

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. There was no indication the three lawmakers 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.”

During the trip, the lawmakers expressed skepticism about the Bush administration’s claims that Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Though such weapons ultimately were never found, the lawmakers drew criticism for their trip at the time.

Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, the second-ranking Senate Republican at the time, said the Democrats “sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government.”

In the pocket of Saddam Hussein, yet, Baghdad Jim McDermott claims that he did not know who paid for the trip outside a Seattle church group.

And, there will be more excuses from the other Democrats.

But, these United States Congressmen gave aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein and his government in the immediate period before the war. Didn’t they have the slightest inkling as to who was sponsoring the trip?

Right……..