Washington: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three US lawmakers during the run-up to the US-led invasion, federal prosecutors said.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit, Michigan, yesterday accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's government. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorise military action against Iraq.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment, but the dates correspond with a trip by Democratic Republics. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

"Obviously we didn't know it at the time," McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said yesterday. "The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That's the only reason we went."

During the trip, the lawmakers expressed skepticism about the Bush administration's claims that Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

"War is not the answer," Bonior, who is no longer in Congress, said at a news conference while on the trip. "There is a way to resolve this."

Though weapons of mass destruction were never found, the lawmakers drew criticism for their trip.

Source : PTI