Late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency paid for three U.S. anti-war congressmen's trip to Iraq in 2002, five months before the launch of the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors have revealed.
The lawmakers are not identified in the indictment, which charges the head of a Michigan charity with acting on Iraq's behalf, but some U.S. media organizations said Thursday that the dates coincide with a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California.
Citing a database of congressional travel, The Washington Post said McDermott reported making a trip worth 5,040 U.S. dollars to the Mideast, paid for by a group called LIFE for Relief & Development.
The newspaper said it could not find similar filings submitted by Thompson or Bonior.
Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press reported that the former Iraqi leader gave a man accused of acting on his behalf 34,000 U.S. dollars to fund the trip.
McDermott's spokesman Mike DeCesare said: "No one would have gone if they had any inkling of this (secret funding), obviously."
"Jim (McDermott) was invited to go by a church group in Seattle; the whole purpose of the trip was to see what was happening to innocent Iraqi children, from economic sanctions, and what might happen if there was an escalation to war, which in fact happened," the spokesman added.
Thompson said in a statement that he went to Iraq to "learn as much as I could before voting on whether or not to commit U.S. troops to war."
He said the trip was approved by the State Department and that he would not have gone "had there been any question at all regarding the sponsor of the trip."
Bonior said: "We met with health officials, students and legislators."
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said there is no evidence that the legislators knew Saddam was footing the bill.
"None of the Congressional representatives are accused of any wrongdoing, and we have no information whatsoever that any of them were aware of the involvement of the Iraqi Intelligence Service," Boyd told The New York Times.
Source:Xinhua
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