2 million barrels of oil to “SET UP A TRIP” and those LIBERAL Democrats did not know anything?
Some reporters really get duped by these DEMOCRATS.
You ever notice the DEM’S always hide behind “it’s for the children”
The Iraqi’s suffered under SADDAM not the U.S.A

It seems highly unlikely that Saddam would pay 2 million barrels of oil so three congressmen could see the kids. As a reported you need to stick to what can be proved, but as voters we need to make reasonable assumptions when we see this kind of behavior.

Try looking at all the congresspersons that went to Iraq since the war and see what their itinerarys look like if you want a good insight into what is really going on during these trips to Iraq even now…paid for by you know who….cmon press, let’s look into this area….

Is this guy stupid? What church in the US or what average American citizen for that matter, could arrange a trip to Iraq in the middle of a war?

Also, why are we always hearing about these things years after they happen? The only reason politicians are going to Iraq is for all the photo ops it brings them for re-election.

I love it; these morons must have taken the short bus to school. No I take that back, I didn’t mean to demean the mentally disadvantaged. These guys are just plain Idiots. I am sick of the “Code Pink” liberal Dems… They make me sick!

“Fair and balanced?” My foot. This “reporting” forgot to note that the trip was vetted and pre-approved by the Bush Administration’s State Department before the Congressmen participated. The trip was also vetted and pre-approved by the House Ethics Committee (then-controlled by Republicans) before the Congressmen participated.

The Congressmen were invited by an independent third party to come to Iraq on a “fact-finding” mission. Fact-finding missions were common-place prior to the start of the war in an attempt to ensure members of Congress had independent sources of information before they voted on the war authorization. It is obviously unfortunate that this independent third party has now been indicted for his activities, but that is completely independent from the actions of the Congressmen.

And let’s not forget that while the Congressmen were there, they questioned the Bush Administration’s claims that Iraq was stockpiling WMD. 5 years later, and has a SINGLE WMD been found in Iraq? It’s important to remember why we initially invaded that country. It’s important to question whether it makes sense to stay there for another 100 years.

Quoting an unnamed “law enforcement contact” saying there’s no suggestion the Congressmen did anything wrong is hack journalism. Fox’s main story on this subject has a direct quote from DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd as saying investigators “have no information whatsoever” that any of the Congressmen had any understanding about the financing about the trip. Substituting innuendo for fact-specific statements is not “reporting.”

No, Lars it is all a big mistake, Saddam was a nice guy, now go back to sleep,
we will elect our people next election. then we can pass a new law making it a crime to print this sort of nonsense.

I’m amazed (not really) that people such as the congressmen would not ask the question “Who is paying for this”. God forbid someone might try to have them support an agenda, especially someone like Saddam. That is almost as good as saying you sat in a church pew for 20 years and never heard a disparaging remark from your racist biggot preacher.

The irony in this is that Muthanna Al-Hanooti is being prosecuted for arranging for a trip in the hope of preventing a war in which - so far - 4,000 American soldiers have lost their lives and thousands more have received deforming injuries. But no one has been held to account for ginning up the false evidence and for starting the war. (Except for Scooter Libby - and his 30-month sentence was promptly commuted.)

These three Democrats KNEW who was funding that trip. These men came back saying how wonderful Saddam was. I’m not so sure about the oil laundering scandal but it sure makes sense to me. Why wouldn’t they accept illegal oil to come back with praises for that sadistic man? Democrats are our worst enemy! These men should be charged with treason along with many other Democrats (a few Republicans, too). And the idiots who STILL cannot understand why we went to war with Saddam, WAKE UP!!!!! We were 100% JUSTIFIED in going after Saddam! Don’t like it? TOUGH! YOU morons are FEEDING the hatred and divisiveness. Imho, that makes you UNAMERICAN! Again, TOUGH if you don’t like that.

Anyone dumb enough to believe a moslem organization would send 3 liberal democrats to do something for poor starving children, is too stupid to be a politician. As I recall, we had already branded Hussein from the Kuwait unpleasantness years earlier. These guys need to help Reid and Pelosi embroider the surrender quilt. The lesson to be learned here is not how stupid liberals can become, but how insidious and far reaching the foreign power interests are entrenched in our freedom loving society. One can only wonder what the income tax liability on all that crude oil might be or who actually got the oil profits. Follow the money. Two million times $40 a bbl. should get a guy into alternative minimum tax.

Yeah, Tedd, it’s all the Bush Republicans fault that these useful idiots went to Iraq. Gosh darn it, how do these morons always manage to stay three steps ahead of the super intelligent progressives, or whatever they admit to being called?

Reply to LaszX why can’t you liberals stick to the subject, we were talking about Muthanna Al-Hanooti and his travel agency now you want to talk about George Bush and the 4,000 solders that have lost their lives in Iraq. I’ll provide you with some statics you can mull over. Since George Bush has been president ten months short of eight years 7,932 American solders have been killed a wars around the world. During Bill Clinton’s eight years in office 14,000 American military men were been killed in wars around the world, why didn’t you and yours chant those numbers in 1,000 body count inteverals while slick Willy was running the show?

Hey Burdick 14,000 dead Americans during the Clinton administration is a lie and you know it. Try checking your facts before you post. These kind of lies from the right are why we are in the mess we are in. Where are those weapons of mass destruction?

A little tip…There was an article in the weekly standard about this “Trip” and in it Mc Dermott told a cnn reporter that he didn’t care if he was being USED by Sadaam Husseing…WHAT DID HE KNOW THEN THAT HE DENIES TODAY?

The connection to Oil for Food is also interesting…since that was a UN program.

I have another thought…Dems always say they love our Country, Support Our troops…carry that further and see what committees these guys sat on..note the contributions from seveal Soros Groups to Mc Dermott..I was able to access his fast…note the Large Donation from the Arab Lobbying groups as well.

This guy and his pals, especially the comment “war is not the answer” from Bonoir who also didn’t mind being USED by Sadaam Hussein!

Ithink the Dems support our Enemies Soldiers and Support Enemy Countries..as long as they are tyrants and murderers like the Syrians..

Who paid for Pelosi’s Middle eastern State Visits? Who is paying for the current ones…and JUST WHERE IS THE CONGRESS LATELY?

Is anyone else behind The Operation Chaos Movement?? Love it !!!!

The biggest threat to America, in order:
(1)Al Qeada
(2)Islamic Extremists
(3)The ACLU
(4)Liberal Dems in Congress
(5)Idiots Who believe #4

It’s truly unfortunate active duty military can’t publicly let our nation hear their opinion…
the left would be overcome with “schock & awe”. If you seriously believe the three amigos didn’t
know who was funding their trip, as the old saying goes,”I’ve got some water front property in Arizona you’ll love”! As for bill who posted above…
(1) Saddam broke the armistice numerous times…we didn’t need any ones permission to go back and finish the job
(2) He had WMD…every credable intelligence agency in the word knew it and said so. Wonder where they are…check out the Bacca Vally in Syria. Also, there’s probably tons of things still buried in Iraq,
like the Soviet migs the Air Force recently uncovered (but not covered by the major media).

All you Code Pinkies and their supporters…FYI…out troops disdain you and everything you stand for!
If you can read these, thank a teacher. If you can read it in English, thank someone in a military uniform! God Bless Our troops & Our president!

Mr.Bill…”Oh no”..they had them at the end of the first gulf war…according to the U.S., the Brits, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Isrealis and all your friends at the UN…but they can’t find them now! I was there…were you? Remember the ones he used to kill over 5,000 Kurdish men, women and children? Remember the ones he used against the Iranians? Probably forgot those in your “Liberal cool-aid haze”. How does it feel to get up every day and go to bed very night knowing your miserable existance is made possible by men and women you degrade every day! For the last 4 years my family and I have visited wounded vets in the hospital. All they want to do is go back and finish the job because they know the rightousness of their cause and what they’re accomplishing. Over 70 million people freed because of their efforts…you’re pathetic! How many hospitals have you visited? My wife’s serving now and my daughters in USAF ROTC. They’ll be protecting your cowardly rearend too! Get your facts straight…oh that right…lefties never let the facts get in the way of the truth.

Catherine just broke the biggest WMD story of the decade the other day, when Fox News obtained a internal Ft Detrick email. This needs to be vigorously followed up. There is a date on the email, too fuzzy to be seen on the Fox Video report - but looks like either June 2005 or June 2006. What is the date.
The reason Catherine’s story is dynamite can be understood reading the flip-flop history of additves or no additives documented below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

The anthrax material

The letters contained at least two grades of anthrax material; the coarse brown material sent in the media letters and the fine powder sent to the two U.S. Senators. In addition, it has been suggested the anthrax material sent to an old Post Office Box address of the National Enquirer and then forwarded to AMI may have been an intermediate grade similar to the anthrax sent to the Senate.[4] The brown granular anthrax sent to media outlets in New York City caused only skin infections, cutaneous anthrax. The anthrax sent to the Senators caused the more dangerous form of infection known as inhalation anthrax, as did the anthrax sent to AMI in Florida.

Although the anthrax preparations were of different grades, all of the material derived from the same bacterial strain. Known as the Ames strain, it was first researched at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Ames strain was then distributed to at least fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas.

DNA sequencing of the anthrax taken from Robert Stevens (the first victim) was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research beginning in December 2001. Sequencing was finished within a month and the analysis was published in the journal Science in early 2002[5].

Radiocarbon dating conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in June 2002 established that the anthrax was cultured no more than two years before the mailings. In October 2006 it was reported that water used to process the anthrax spores came from a source in the northeastern United States.[6] Erroneous press reports in 2003 indicated the FBI failed to reverse engineer the type of anthrax found in the letters.[7][8] According to Chemical & Engineering News, December 4, 2006[6] Later, the FBI claimed a “lone individual” could have weaponized anthrax spores for as little as $2,500, using a makeshift basement laboratory.[9]

A number of press reports appeared suggesting the Senate anthrax had coatings and additives.[10][11][12] Newsweek reported the anthrax sent to Senator Leahy had been coated with a chemical compound previously unknown to bioweapons experts.[13]

Two experts on the Soviet anthrax program, Kenneth Alibek and Matthew Meselson, were consultants with the Justice Department and were shown electron micrographs of the anthrax from the Daschle letter. They replied to the Washington Post article “FBI’s Theory on Anthrax Is Doubted” (October 28, 2002), reporting that they saw no evidence the anthrax spores had been coated and that more careful investigation of the specimens is necessary [14]

A week after Meselson and Alibek had their letter published in the Washington Post, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), one of the military labs that analyzed the Daschle anthrax, published an official newsletter stating that silica was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax.[15] The AFIP lab deputy director, Florabel Mullick, said “This [silica] was a key component. Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize. Significantly, we noted the absence of aluminum with the silica. This combination had previously been found in anthrax produced by Iraq.”

In February 2005, Stephan P. Velsko of Lawrence Livermore National Labs published a paper titled “Physical and Chemical Analytical Analysis: A key component of Bioforensics”.[16] In this paper, Velsko illustrated that different silica coating processes gave rise to weaponized anthrax simulants that look completely different from one another. He suggested that the difference in the look of products could provide evidence of what method the lab that manufactured the 2001 anthrax used, and thus provide clues to the ultimate origin of the material.

In May 2005, Academic Press published the volume “Microbial Forensics” edited by Roger Breeze, Bruce Budowle and Steven Schutzer.[17] Bruce Budowle is with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Forensic Science Laboratory. Although the volume does not directly discuss the silica coatings found in the Senate anthrax of 2001, the contributors to the chapters discuss in detail the forensics of silica coated weaponized bacterial spores. Pictures are shown of silica weaponized bacillus spores that are both mixed with silica and fully coated with silica. Pictures of weaponized Clostridium spores coated with Colloidal, spherical silica are also shown. Again, the aim of these studies is to define the forensic fingerprints of silica weaponization processes.

In July 2005, Dr Michael V Callahan (who is presently with DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)) gave a briefing before the Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack.[18] Dr Callahan stated “First, the attack illustrated that advanced expertise had readily been exploited by a bioterrorist; the preparation in the Daschle letter contained extraordinarily high concentrations of purified endospores. Second, the spore preparation was coated with an excipient which helped retard electrostatic attraction, thus increasing aerosolization of the agent.”

The August 2006 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology[19] contained an article written by Dr. Douglas Beecher of the FBI labs in Quantico, VA. The article, titled “Forensic Application of Microbiological Culture Analysis to Identify Mail Intentionally Contaminated with Bacillus anthracis spores ,” states “Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents.” The article also specifically criticizes “a widely circulated misconception” “that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production.” The harm done by such things is described this way: “This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.” However, after this article had appeared the editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, L. Nicholas Ornston, stated that he was uncomfortable with Beecher’s statement in the article since it had no evidence to back it up and contained no citation.[20]

In April 2007 an analysis of the spore preparation was published in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence[21]. This analysis by Dr. Dany Shoham and Dr. Stuart Jacobsen pointed out that the sophisticated additives and processing used to create the weapon likely could be used to trace the origin.

In August 2007 Dr. Kay Mereish, UN Chief, Biological Planning and Operations, published a letter in Applied and Environmental Microbiology titled “Unsupported Conclusions on the Bacillus anthracis Spores”.[22] This letter, published in the same journal as FBI scientist Douglas Beecher (see paragraph above), points out that the statements made by Dr. Beecher in his article on the lack of additives were not backed up with any data. She suggested that Dr. Beecher publish a paper with analytical data showing the absence of silica or other additives. Such data would include SEM images of the pure spores as well as EDX spectra and EDX images showing the absence of any foreign additives such as silica or the elements silicon and oxygen. Dr. Mereish referenced a 2006 CBRN, Counter-Proliferation and Response meeting in Paris where a presenter announced that an additive was present in the attack anthrax that affected the spore’s electrical charges.

Fox News [23] reported in March 2008 that an email written by a scientist at Fort Detrick revealed details of the powder preparation - these details appear to be consistent with a highly specialized powder. The Fox News report said “But in an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues. “Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared … to duplicate the letter material,” the e-mail reads. “Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same … his knees got shaky and he sputtered, ‘But I told the General we didn’t make spore powder!’” The Fox News report added that around 4 persons, all with connections to Fort Detrick, were being looked at as suspects by the FBI.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — “linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.” While Jeff is trying to get a date from the reporter, the key to the story is who these three people are.

At one point, a microbiologist imam suspected of being involved in the anthrax mailings (according to the WashPo who quoted name FBI agents) and colleague of fellow Falls Church “911 imam” had an office 15 feet from the former Deputy Commander of USAMRIID and famed Russian anthrax scientist Ken Alibek.

It perhaps was more than a happy coincidence for Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli that an active supporter of the Taliban and supporter of jihad was a US biodefense insider. Microbiologist Al-Timimi worked in the same building as LEADING ANTHRAX SCIENTIST Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID DEPUTY COMMANDER (and for a few months Acting Commander) Charles Bailey, who would come to publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax. Ken had a DARPA-funded work for USAMRIID involving Delta Ames. Now neither Ken nor Charles did anything wrong IMO. Charles has “lawyered up” only for institutional prudential reasons. Ali Al-Timimi was sentenced to life plus 70 years (before his conviction was overturned because of alleged NSA wiretapping in 2002. Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. He would speak along with the blind sheik’s son — the blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee — at charity conferences. In 2001 and 2002, he spoke alongside the “911 imam” Anwar Aulaqi. In Fall 2002, Aulaqi, who was repeatedly interrogated by the FBI during 18 months detention in Yemen recently, came and sought Ali’s help with jihad but Ali turned him away, according to his lawyer, Edward McMahon. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week after 9/11, FBI agents questioned Ali Al-Timimi, who was a microbiology graduate student in a program jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy and years earlier for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card when he was Secretary of Transportation. As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with a charity Islamic Assembly of North America. Let’s see the email made available (in the redacted form). It’s too important an issue to fuzz things up when clarity is what is needed. Otherwise, the report is just a headache for the likes of RS or CJP or other USAMRIID Deputy Commanders.