I wonder how Americans are going to react to the news that a Democrat Senator was currying favor for a Korean businessman with a sadistic killer, Sadam Hussein:

According to the documents, Mr Torricelli, nicknamed “the Torch” for his incendiary political style, had a series of meetings in the late 1990s, when he was a congressman, with Nizar Hamdoun, then the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. During these meetings, Mr Torricelli allegedly urged the Iraqi authorities to help Mr Chang and Bright and Bright get oil-for-food contracts on good terms.

The first meeting between Mr Torricelli and Mr Hamdoun took place on March 10 1996, when, according to an Iraqi document that has been described to the FT, Mr Torricelli reportedly suggested that he was willing to play an active role in improving US-Iraq communications.

The two talked about Resolution 986, which was going to set the rules of the oil-for-food programme. Mr Torricelli said a number of US companies would be interested in doing business with Baghdad, and specifically mentioned Mr Chang.

According to the same Iraqi document, Mr Torricelli met Mr Hamdoun again two days later. At that meeting, Mr Torricelli said that since their previous conversation he had spoken with Edward Gnehm, the deputy US representative to the UN, who was leading negotiations with Iraq about the oil-for-food programme.

On June 22, according to the same document, Mr Torricelli allegedly met Mr Hamdoun again. Mr Torricelli told him he had heard that the Iraqis might not give US companies any contracts and advised him that this would be a mistake. Mr Torricelli told Mr Hamdoun that he expected to win a US Senate seat in the November election (as he later did), and said that Bright and Bright was important to him and his election campaign and that he hoped that the company would receive contracts from Iraq.

According to the Iraqi document, Bright and Bright initially asked for 60 per cent of Iraq’s oil contracts and a discount of $1.50 a barrel. Then on June 11 1996, a Bright and Bright executive wrote to Mr Hamdoun asking for government contracts worth as much as $300m in the first 90 days of the oil-for-food programme. In return, he said Bright and Bright would continue to support the normalisation of relations between the US and Iraq.

Will the news Democrats (or this Democrat) will do just about anything for campaign donations affect the November elections?  Well, it would probably have an enormous impact if the dates I highlighted were put into some context.  So let’s look at 1995, and one Hussein Kamel.  This is what transpired the previous year to Torricelli’s efforts:

Kamel rose through the army ranks to become Iraq’s minister of military industries, heading the Military Industrialisation Commission and supervising Iraq’s weapons development programs from 1987.

He married one of Saddam Hussein’s daughters, Raghad Hussein, and lived in Iraq until 1995. On August 7 of that year, Kamel and his wife defected from Iraq …

Hussein Kamal exposed Iraq’s nuclear and biological weapons programs.  He has been called by some on the left a testimony to Iraq’s disarmament and innocence.  I am sure that is why Saddam had his son-in-law killed upon his return.  In any event, Torricelli was discussing deals to relieve sanctions on Saddam less than a year after his son-in-law spilled the beans on his hidden WMD capabilities.  That tells you all you need to know about the Torch and anyone who defends him.