CAIR Connection in Congressional Baghdad Trip Politely Ignored

Don't look for this in traditional, mainstream media.

"Ex-CAIR chief indicted for 'Baghdad Jim' junket"
World Net Daily (March 27, 2008)

A former head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan branch, Muthanna Al-Hanooti, an Iraqi-American, was indicted yesterday. He's accused of setting up a visit by three congressmen.

That's not what got him indicted. It's that he

• Set up a visit to Baghdad
• During the run-up to the war
• Got money for the visit from
  Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency
• And was paid with 2 million barrels of oil
  by Iraqi intelligence officials

I'm no expert, but that does look suspicious.

What strikes me is not that an American organization's former chief would covertly subvert the 'Oil for Food' program, to the tune of two billion dollars gross, and launder Saddam Hussein's money to pay for a little trip to Baghdad.

It's that the organization is a major civil rights advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): and that none of the mainstream national news media is mentioning the fact. Not even to absolve CAIR of any connection.

That could be a remarkable case of polite reticence. Or it could be a case of news media not wanting to appear biased, or racist, or to be engaged in Islamophobia. I'm inclined to favor the second possibility. There's reason to believe that news media in America, and globally, print all the news they feel like printing.

The end users of Hussein's largess were U.S. Representatives

• Jim McDermott (Washington)
• David Bonior (Michigan)
• Mike Thompson (California)

There's no published evidence that they knew who was bankrolling their trip.

Related posts, on censorship, propaganda, and freedom of speech.