You expect to read this from Ray Duray, but not from a Congressman.
washingtonpost.com
Lawmaker Criticizes Capture Of Hussein
Associated Press
Tuesday, December 16, 2003; Page A17
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who earned headlines across the globe last year for criticizing President Bush while in Baghdad, is enmeshed in a new controversy over remarks he made about the capture of Saddam Hussein.
In an interview yesterday with a Seattle radio station, McDermott said the U.S. military could have found the former Iraqi dictator "a long time ago if they wanted."
Asked if he thought the weekend capture was timed to help Bush, McDermott chuckled and said, "Yeah. Oh, yeah." He added, "There's too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing."
When the interviewer asked again if he meant to imply the Bush administration timed the capture for political reasons, McDermott said: "I don't know that it was definitely planned on this weekend, but I know they've been in contact with people all along who knew basically where he was. It was just a matter of time till they'd find him."
State Republicans immediately condemned McDermott's remarks, saying the Seattle Democrat again was engaging in "crazy talk" about the Iraq war.
"Calling on him to apologize is useless, but I call on other Democrats to let the public know if they agree with McDermott -- and Howard Dean, who recently said he thought it was possible that President Bush had advance knowledge about 9/11," said state Republican Chairman Chris Vance. "The voters deserve to know if the entire Democratic Party believes in these sorts of bitter, paranoid conspiracy theories."
Democrats joined the criticism of McDermott.
"With all due respect to my colleague, that is a fantasy," Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) said of McDermott's comments. "That just is not right. . . . It's one thing to criticize this administration for having done this war. I mean, that's a fair question. But to criticize them on the capture of Saddam, when it's such a big thing to our troops, is just ridiculous."
McDermott, in a telephone interview, called the timing of Hussein's capture suspicious but said he was not alleging it had been intentionally delayed.
"Everything was going wrong, and they got a real Christmas gift, if you will, in that the troops did a magnificent job and found" Hussein, he said.
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