McDermott: I don't recall

Congressman Jim McDermott says he doesn't remember much about the alleged Iraqi spy who paid for his 2002 trip to Iraq and accompanied him on the controversial prewar visit.

Muthanna Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty this week to federal charges that he was paid by Saddam Hussein's intelligence service to keep an eye on members of Congress and to do other work in America on behalf of Saddam's regime.

"I don't remember this man at all," McDermott said Friday.

Al-Hanooti was one of three people on the trip from Michigan-based Life for Relief and Development, a Muslim charity that paid for McDermott's visit to Iraq.

The indictment alleges that the Iraqi intelligence service, using an intermediary, funneled $34,000 to the charity to finance the trip. Al-Hanooti was rewarded with 3 million barrels of Iraqi oil for his work, the indictment says.

The U.S. Justice Department has said McDermott and two other Democratic members of Congress on the trip did not know Saddam's regime paid their expenses.

Another of the three men from the charity was Shakir al-Khafaji, who later acknowledged he had financial ties to Saddam's regime. McDermott returned $5,000 that al-Khafaji had donated to the congressman's defense fund, established to help pay the legal costs of an unrelated lawsuit.

McDermott said he does remember al-Khafaji.

Thursday, Seattle peace activist Bert Sacks said he began arranging the 2002 trip to Iraq after getting a call from McDermott's office, saying the congressman wanted to go and wanted to do it immediately. Years earlier Sacks had pushed McDermott to visit Iraq but had not proposed the 2002 trip.

On Friday, McDermott said "that's not the timeline I remember." But, he said, Sacks may be correct. He said the one thing he can think of that might have prompted him to ask for the trip is learning that Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.V., had recently returned from Iraq. "I didn't realize anybody could get in," McDermott said.

He wanted to go as part of his effort to head off a U.S. invasion.

"There was a number of people who felt the Democrats weren't doing anything. We were just sitting on our hands and letting Bush go to war," McDermott said. "I could sense in the Congress we were going to war. And I wanted to do everything I could to be able to talk knowledgeably about it and prevent that from happening."

The war started in March 2003.

Al-Hanooti's offer to pay for the trip came in a telephone call to Sacks. The two men had never spoken before, and Sacks didn't know what prompted the call.

McDermott said he didn't know, either. And he says he thought his trip was being paid for by the Church Council of Greater Seattle, which handles administrative chores for Sacks' group, the Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq.

McDermott invited then-Congressman David Bonior, D-Mich., to come along. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., also joined the trip.

It was through Bonior that Al-Hanooti's organization, Life for Relief and Development, got involved. The group, McDermott said, was authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department to travel to Iraq for its humanitarian work.

The Treasury Department won't comment on the trip or on the Life organization.

Paperwork released by McDermott's office Friday shows that before the trip his sponsor was listed as the Interfaith Network, and Bonior's sponsor was The Iraq Expatriate Conference.

Another document, though, shows the Interfaith Network and Life for Relief and Development as co-sponsors of the trip. There is no mention of which group was paying for which member of Congress.

After the trip, McDermott's office filed paperwork saying that Life for Relief and Development covered the expenses. McDermott's office also released a photocopy of his passport. An entry reads "THIS PASSPORT IS ALSO VALID FOR ONE ROUND TRIP TO IRAQ" and is signed by the director of the State Department's Special Issuance Agency.

A State Department spokesman said the department has no formal role in approving unofficial congressional trips, such as the 2002 delegation to Iraq. No one could be reached to answer questions about the Special Issuance Agency.

McDermott said questions about the trip should be directed to the Bush administration, which he said either "couldn't figure this out or they were so sloppy they missed it, or whatever."

David Postman: 360-236-8267 or dpostman@seattletimes.com