This thread did not come up when I searched, so I posted the later Yahoo/AP article but that thread has just been nuked by the mods for duplication, I suppose. Still, the later article has more details:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/ap_on_re_us/iraq_junket;_ylt=AofAYBRW.LNfkvM9ivTT9JWs0NUE
Al-Hanooti was arrested Tuesday night while returning to the U.S. from the Middle East, where he was looking for a job, his attorney, James Thomas, said. Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. He was being held on $100,000 bail.
Between 1999 and 2006, he worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a charity group formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided the charity’s headquarters in 2006 but charged nobody and allowed the agency to continue operating.
McDermott identified that charity as the group financing the Iraq trip. In House disclosure forms, he put the cost at $5,510. Thompson also understood the charity to be financing the trip, spokeswoman Anne Warden said.
Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam’s government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq.
In exchange for coordinating the congressional trip, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, prosecutors said.
ping to Saddam’s oil-for-food corruption scam buying some “useful idiots” from the Democrat Congress
ping to 52
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1074808/posts
Who Did Saddam Bribe?
The Omega Letter / MEMRI ^ | 2-9-04 | Jack Kinsella
Posted on 02/09/2004 5:34:08 PM PST by hope
Omega Letter Christian Intelligence Digest
Who Did Saddam Bribe?
List Names Top Officials in France, Russia
Terror - Islam Monday, February 09, 2004 MEMRI
On January 25, 2004, a daily newspaper in Iraq called al Mada published a list of individuals and organizations who it says received oil from the now-deposed regime. Among those listed is Shakir al Khafaji, an Iraqi-American from Detroit, who ran “Expatriate Conferences” for the regime in Baghdad. Al Khafaji also contributed $400,000 to the production of Scott Ritter’s film “In Shifting Sands.” Finally, al Khafaji arranged travel and financing for the “Baghdad Democrats”—Jim McDermott, Mike Thompson and David Bonior—last fall. Following the trip, al Khafaji contributed $5,000 to McDermott’s Legal Defense Fund.
Source: Memri
“Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam’s government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq.
In exchange for coordinating the congressional trip, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, prosecutors said.”