"We Don't Mind Being Used"

The Weekly Standard’s The Blog has a post by Stephen F. Hayes detailing the revelation that Democratic Representatives David Bonior, Jim Thompson, and Jim McDermott took Saddam’s money for their fact finding trip to Baghdad in the fall of 2002, during the run-up toward hostilities in Iraq. This was a trip ostensibly to broker a peace with the Saddam regime and to see first hand the terrible effects on Iraqi children of the U.S. sanctions on Iraq. We know now, of course, that any suffering by the people of Iraq had more to do with Kofi Annan, and Co. in the "oil for food" scandal than with President Bush.

This is how the trip was reported by The Weekly Standard in October of 2002:

EVEN BEFORE the Baghdad boys left Iraq, media outlets throughout the Middle East gleefully highlighted divisions in the U.S. government and the travels by the 'antiwar' congressmen. The Iraq Daily, for example, published by Saddam's Ministry of Information, printed daily updates of the trip and posted them in English on their website.

For example, a September 30 report says, 'the members of the U.S. Congress delegation has underlined that this visit aims to get acquainted with the truth of Iraq's people sufferings due to ongoing embargo which caused shortage in food and medicine for all Iraqi people.' (That article appeared next to a report on Saddam's continuing financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers or, to use the paper's formulation, 'intrepid Palestinian uprising martyrs.' Also in that issue is an article by American white supremacist Matthew Hale, 'Truth About 9-11: How Jewish Manipulation Killed Thousands.')...

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.'

"Baghdad Jim" McDermott as yet hasn't commented on the latest report of his complicity with Saddam, a sworn enemy of the United States and murderer of hundreds of thousands.