Baghdad Jim Likes Being Used

OK, tell the truth. Did you smirk just a little when you heard the news break that Jim McDermott, David Bonior and Mike Thompson were the favored stooges of Saddam on their pre-war trip to Iraq 'for research' on the conditions in country? I suppose the truth exposed 5 years later is better than never. Their excellent adventure, complete with news conferences showing flies on their faces and sand all around in the hot sun, was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti. He's referred to as a 'charity official' in yesterday's article on Breitbart.com. Al-Hanooti has been indicted and charged with arranging the road trip on orders from Saddam's regime. According to Breitbart, "Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil."

The three stooges aren't named in the indictment. The Justice Department said investigators don't believe any of them had any knowledge of their underwriter. OK.

Remember how proud you were when Baghdad Jim and the posse were there at the airport telling the world how terrible President Bush was and that the impending war was illegal and unjust? Oh, yeah, that wasn't pride I felt. It was revulsion.

Al-Hanooti worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development between 1999 and 2006. McDermott identified the charity as the financier of his trip. Thompson is also reported to have understood the charity as the money behind the trip.

Maybe the politicians were in such high Bush Derangement mode that they didn't bother to check out their money man. Maybe they knew full well about the money connection and it didn't matter to them.

Stephen Hayes has an article at Weekly Standard online on this and mentions that McDermott's spokesman denies McDermott knew the money came from Saddam's regime. "He told me the same thing in 2004, when I asked him about the $5,000 McDermott had accepted for his legal defense fund from Shakir al Khafaji, one of Saddam Hussein's biggest U.S. boosters before the war. Khafaji, who accompanied the congressmen and made the arrangements for their visit, had run "expatriate" conferneces in Baghdad for Saddam as recently as 2000. He also provided $400,000 to former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter for Ritter's propaganda film on behalf of the former Iraqi regime. In an interview back in 2001, Ritter told me that Khafaji was "openly sympathetic" with Saddam Hussein."

All of this information was public record.

"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." A traitor hiding behind 'the children'. Touching, isn't it.

Oh, wait. Isn't Baghdad Jim the same congressman found guilty of tape recording Newt Gingrich's private cell phone conversation with the help of two DNC officials in Florida when Newt was Speaker of the House? The same congressman who rails about the loss of personal privacy by the fascist Bush administration?

Yes, he is.