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From Foxnews.com

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WASHINGTON — Three U.S. lawmakers made a trip to Iraq that was secretly financed by Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for the members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime.

Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary, and that Al-Hanooti received 2 million barrels of oil for his role.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.

None of the lawmakers in question was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators “have no information whatsoever” any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California.

McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare told FOX News his boss did not know Muthanna Al-Hanooti and “would not have gone” had he known who paid for the trip to Iraq in the fall of 2002.

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The Saddam Officials Financed Secret Pre-War Iraq Trip for U.S. Lawmakers, Prosecutors Say by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.