'Baghdad' Jim McDermott Took Cash from Saddam Ally

NewsMax.com ^ | 5/01/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who famously traveled to Baghdad last fall and pronounced President Bush a liar, accepted a cash payment less than a month later from an Iraqi-American businessman with ties to Saddam Hussein.

McDermott collected the payment from Shakir al-Khafaji, the same Detroit-based Baghdad apologist who paid former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter $400,000 two years ago to make a pro-Saddam documentary about Iraq.

Appearing live from Baghdad on the Sept. 29 broadcast of ABC's "This Week," McDermott proclaimed, "The president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war." The comment generated a firestorm of criticism in the U.S. that earned him the moniker, "Baghdad Jim."

A little less than a month later, on Oct. 25, McDermott accepted a check from al-Khafaji for $5,000, made out to the antiwar Democrat's "Legal Expense Trust."

McDermott set up the trust to fend off a lawsuit filed by Ohio Republican John Boehner stemming from McDermott's relationship with a Florida couple who wiretapped a 1997 conference call between Boehner and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, along with several other Republicans.

The revelation that on the eve of war, a pro-Baghdad U.S. congressman was accepting cash from a Saddam ally was first reported in this week's Weekly Standard.

The magazine said that the McDermott bombshell was uncovered amidst a treasure trove of Ba'ath Party documents discovered by coalition forces after the collapse of Saddam's government. Other documents in the same find indicated that George Galloway, a pro-Saddam member of Britain's Parliament, may have accepted millions of dollars in payments from Baghdad.

The Galloway shocker was first reported by London's Daily Telegraph on April 22.

The staggering news that antiwar politicians on both sides of the Atlantic may have been on Saddam's payroll is fueling concerns that some of the antiwar coverage by Western reporters may have been bought and paid for by Baghdad.

As noted by the Standard, in 1991 the Wall Street Journal reported that Saddam's propaganda strategy included "waging an intensive, sometimes clandestine, and by most accounts highly effective image war in the Arab world" ranging from "financing friendly publications and columnists as far away as Paris to doling out gifts as big as new Mercedes-Benzes."

Today's Washington Times hints there may be a connection between Saddam's attempts to buy favor with influential Westerners and the failure of the U.S. media to devote much attention to the McDermott-Galloway story. Citing the Media Research Center, the Times reports:

"Although the Telegraph began reporting on documents showing Galloway's payoffs on April 22, it's been blacked out at ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as CNN, NPR, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report.

"'But the outlets most responsible to follow the money trail to Galloway and other anti-war voices are the outlets who promoted them on American airwaves,' said [the MRC's Tim] Graham, citing ABC's 'World News Tonight,' 'Nightline' and 'Good Morning America'; CBS' 'The Early Show'; and 'NBC Nightly News.'"

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Saddam Hussein/Iraq

[Grampa Dave]

kcvl this is a great find, I have bookmarked it.

I recommend to the other bumpees to bookmark or index this article.

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:irE_ZanFhy0J:www.weeklystandard.com/Check.asp%3FidArticle%3D2605%26r%3Dfgcob+jim+mcdermott+Legal+Expense+Trust&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Al-Khafaji first came to public notice after revelations that he gave former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter $400,000 to produce a film that criticized the United States for its role in the inspection process. Al-Khafaji, who is listed as a "senior executive producer" of the film, arranged meetings for Ritter with high-level officials in Saddam's government, a feat New York Times magazine writer Barry Bearak found "impressive." Ritter had previously been an outspoken critic of Saddam Hussein, and issued dire warnings about the status of the Iraqi dictator's weapons of mass destruction. His sudden flip--he is now a leading apologist for Saddam's regime--and revelations about Ritter's 2001 arrest for soliciting sex with minors have fueled speculation about the nature of his relationship with al-Khafaji.

Al-Khafaji has long claimed that he cares only about the Iraqi people, an assertion too preposterous even for Ritter, who told THE WEEKLY STANDARD in 2001 that his patron was "openly sympathetic with the regime in Baghdad." That stands to reason. The Falcon Trading Group, a company that al-Khafaji founded in 1993 in Johannesburg, South Africa, has done nearly $70 million of business with Saddam's regime.

Al-Khafaji told Baghdad Radio on June 14, 2000, that he hoped to arrange a delegation so that members of the U.S. Congress could "get acquainted with the Iraqi people's suffering as a result of the unjust embargo clamped on it." He got his wish two years later, when he accompanied Reps. Jim McDermott, Mike Thompson, and David Bonior to Baghdad last fall.

McDermott, in particular, caused quite a fuss when in a September 29 appearance on ABC's "This Week" from Baghdad, he claimed, "The president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war." Moments later, despite 12 years of evidence that the Iraqi regime had lied about its weapons program, McDermott said, "I think you have to take the Iraqis on their face value."

The same day, Babil ran a brief item in its local news section. "Saddam Hussein received

[kcvl]

SALAMA NIMAT, the Jordanian journalist, says it's not just Arab journalists who took money. "The Western media has been playing the game, too, including Americans."

In Dearborn, Michigan, one radio station has for years broadcast a weekly, two-hour pro-Saddam program. According to Iraqi Americans who monitored the broadcasts, each program began with the Baath party anthem.

Ismail Mansour, a Pentagon-trained Iraqi American working with coalition forces in Iraq, says the regime's money reached well inside the United States, going to journalists and others. "In America, Saddam friends give money and they make protest," he says. "In the Arab world, it's the same thing. They pay money to do that."

[kcvl]

The formidable task of sifting through the mountains of documents Saddam's regime left behind is only beginning. Many of the answers at this point are obscured by more questions.

But George Galloway most assuredly wasn't the only person lining his pockets by defending Saddam Hussein. Journalists and diplomats and businessmen have been doing it for years. Their stories will be told.

[kcvl]

Short Eyes Scotty and Baghdad Jim! It's the dynamic duo!

But here's the best part:

Still, Bush administration sources say they have recovered enough Iraqi government and Baath party documents to fill 100 semi-trailers. "We're overwhelmed with information," says one Pentagon official. "It's going to take a long time to go through it all."

That process is just now beginning--a fact that is surely rattling nerves around the world.

The fun's just getting started.

[NormsRevenge]

Bump

To McDoormat.. You've been Saddamized!

[Grampa Dave]

kcvl, this is really great news:

Bush administration sources say they have recovered enough Iraqi government and Baath party documents to fill 100 semi-trailers. "We're overwhelmed with information," says one Pentagon official. "It's going to take a long time to go through it all."

[kcvl]

This is the part that I like the BEST...

the regime's money reached well inside the United States, going to journalists and others

[BOBTHENAILER]

A lot of the translating will be finished around August to September of 2004.

The part about the journalists will come much quicker. IMHO

[Grampa Dave]

Any data on any so called journalist, editor or publish getting blood/hush money from Soddomite should be released as soon as it is found.

Then, they should be turned into the IRS and their State Franchise Tax board for failure to declare income.

[expatpat]

Right. The other $995,000 went into a Swiss bank account.

[Publius]

Ping.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Bush administration sources say they have recovered enough Iraqi government and Baath party documents to fill 100 semi-trailers.

We will be going through this pile of paper for years not enough people that can read arabic or farsi !

Ought to be some really good stuff in there!

[Grampa Dave]

We have over 5,000 in Dearborn, Michigan who would volunteer to read what is in those papers. I trust them to turn over most of the data. They might want to keep a few special names for some special house warming calls.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There are a lot of people willing to work for Dubya! Did you see him land on the USS Lincoln?

What an incredible smile he had, and all the sailors were beaming too!

[ShandaLear]

Heavens! Don't they know this information is likely to get him a Senate seat in this state or maybe even the Governor's mansion?

[Grampa Dave]

Yes, I did see CIC GW land on the Lincoln today. What a heart grabbing/wonderful experience! (Both the landing and how our sailors greet our president and how he greeted them!)

[muawiyah]

McDermott didn't get a pass from Lott - you are mixing up the Senate and the House - but he did get a pass from the FBI which investigated this starting January 15, 1997. See: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V116/N67/fbi.67w.html for a full reference to a rather definitive NYTimes article on the matter.)

Eventually the "couple in Florida" copped a plea and the public never did find out what the FBI really discovered.

There's no doubt the "couple in Florida" were nothing more than designated fallguys for Iraqi intelligence agents operating out of Florida. McDermott becomes their puppet way back in 1996/97, and finds himself and his friends involved in what was to become the "9/11 Attack on America".

No doubt these Democrat goofballs thought that the American people would be so revulsed by what would look like George Bush' ineptitude that they would cry out to be saved by the Democrats.

One thing leading to another, the Dems would be back in power, the Reps out on the street, and a popular coup would have taken place. ~ for the cognizenti, this is the "Reichstag Fire scenario" a number of Dems have accused the Republicans of thinking up. No doubt they are "projecting"!

We might also check out the US Attorney that let the "couple in Florida" skate? Was she part of the AlQaida conspiracy or just one of many Dems Saddam was paying off? That's certainly a question somone in John Ashcroft's Justice Department ought to find an answer for.

[shotgun]

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz....

[widowithfoursons]

But John Ashcroft will never ask the question. And Jim McDermott will continue to be a congressman.

[muawiyah]

You seem so easily persuaded. Do you, perhaps, live in McDermott's district? I live in Jim Moran's district and we know he sold out to AlQaida AND Saddam Hussein. He did so frequently. Without these guys Jim would not have had any campaign funds or cash to pay his bills.

(Oh, mygosh, I've just named two of the conspirators!)