Rep. Jim Mcdermott: Still, he was right

News that Rep. Jim McDermott's 2002 trip to Iraq, which he took along with two other lawmakers, was paid for by despot Saddam Hussein is embarrassing and unfortunate, but nothing more. As an American lawmaker, McDermott had compelling reasons to visit a country we were on the verge of invading. In fact, we wish more lawmakers would take the trouble to see the world. They have a hand in crafting our foreign policy, after all. It's just too bad that the trip wasn't paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Apparently, the funds for McDermott's trip went through two intermediaries -- one of them a member of a Michigan group that funded humanitarian work in Iraq -- and the trip was approved by the State Department, an agency that shares the blame for this blunder. Equating the trip with the Jack Abramoff scandal is ludicrous. Unlike, say, Tom DeLay, who accepted free trips, among them to a beach resort in Saipan in exchange for political favors, McDermott took a $5,510 trip to Iraq, hardly Shangri-La, to witness the economic effects of sanctions on Iraq. He didn't even know Saddam paid for the trip.

Furthermore, the congressman wasn't the one receiving the 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. That payoff allegedly went to Muthanna Al-Hanooti, the Michigan charity official who set up the junket and who denies any wrongdoing.

It's important to remember McDermott's stance on Iraq: He called for a diplomatic solution and has been a critic of the war. In a 2003 editorial questioning the Bush administration's case for war, we listed McDermott as among those whose wisdom in opposing it was yet to be recognized. Junket or no junket, he's been right all along.