West Virginia Congressman to Fly to Iraq

BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) -- A congressman skeptical of the need for U.S. military action against Iraq says he is flying to Baghdad, hoping to answer questions about a possible invasion and seeking a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said he wants to reassure Iraqi citizens that Americans are ``not out to wage war for war's sake.''

``I'm not going as a secretary of state,'' Rahall said Tuesday. ``I'm not going as a weapons inspector. And I'm not calling upon this administration to do one thing or another. I just have a lot of questions.''

Rahall, who was to leave early Wednesday evening, said he would tell the Iraqi president he should allow United Nations weapon inspectors ``unconditional and unfettered access to his country so we can find answers to a lot of questions the Congress has.''

The trip is sponsored by the Institute for Public Accuracy, a group that says it seeks to foster the point of view of ``those whose perspectives are commonly drowned out by corporate-backed think tanks.''

Rahall said the group, which has been arranging the trip for months, has meetings scheduled with Foreign Minister Naji Sabril and other government leaders, as well as Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector who has become a critic of Washington's Iraq policies.

President Bush is campaigning for support in Congress and abroad for military action against the Hussein regime, as his father did more than a decade ago.

The IPA and a discussion on Nass and the antimalarial medication/Remdesivir that popped up tonight on late night Sasquatch and tinfoil radio. I hadn’t heard anything from her since she and Rosenberg were defaming Hatfill... all the sudden she’s popped up again but I was wondering if anyone else has run across her lately. There’s another leftist group involved with her as well...and if she’s active it’s interesting given her Cuban connections.

PS: An interesting item in that article is that a lot of Nader supporters from 2000 swung over to Kerry in 2004, causing some friction on the left. Solomon got into this, causing some friction on the left. They're having a similar dilemma in 2020, per an open letter reproduced on the CP's website: Dear Greens: Don’t screw this up.: Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert have written an open letter to the Green Party about their 2020 election strategy. They pose a vital question: It is election night 2020. The vote tallies are in. Which way would the 2020 Green candidate feel better? Trump wins and the Green candidate gets 250,000 votes across the contested states, more than enough for Sanders, Warren, or whoever to have won? Or, Trump loses and the Green candidate gets no votes in the contested states, but a bunch extra in other states as a result of having more time for campaigning there? Read their letter here. They hope that it will spread widely and spark a useful public discussion. Pass it on!

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