WASHINGTON — Rep. Gregory Meeks got bumped from a taxpayer-funded trip to northern Iraq because his travel companion and fellow lawmaker had been banned from the country.
"They did not let us go," Meeks (D-Queens) told The Post after a lawmaker raised concerns about the trip at a classified briefing.
The State Department says the trip was canceled because the Iraqis had banned Meeks' travel companion, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), from visiting since 2011, when he remarked that Iraq should repay the US for its 2003 invasion of the country.
Dana RohrabacherPhoto: AP
"Security is not the issue here," a State Department official told The Post. "The real issue is the fact that Representative Rohrabacher had been expelled from the country. We're not going to fly him there if he can't get into the country."
The pair, both on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, still went on with their taxpayer-funded two-week tour with stops in Russia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Hungary and Austria.
Meeks hobnobbed with business leaders and was lauded in the local press and publicly asked to set up a meeting between a Kazakh bigwig and Mayor Bill de Blasio. The mayor's office said it wasn't aware of such a request.
Meeks and Rohrabacher brought a delegation of US business powerbrokers to Kazakhstan, The Astana Times reported.
While Meeks' visit was axed, the State Department did sign off on Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) traveling to Irbil, in northern Iraq. The Armed Services chair received a warm welcome from Kurdish leaders and thanks for US support.
Rohrabacher had been asked to leave Iraq during a visit in 2011, when he publicly called on Baghdad to repay funds the US spent on the 2003 invasion.
Separately, a Rohrabacher-led delegation was banned from Afghanistan in 2012 after he questioned President Hamid Karzai's trustworthiness.
Rohrabacher's office said it was shocked to hear that Levin got in, because it had assumed no Congress members had gotten the State Department's blessing to visit.
As for the Iraq ban, his office said it had assumed it had expired with the new Iraqi government.
"[It's] always security," Rohrabacher grumbled to The Post. "I don't buy it at all. I think it's control of information that flows here so we cannot make up our minds independently."
Meeks also seemed unaware of his companion's travel troubles and blamed the State Department for putting up roadblocks.
"The State Department has not made it easy for individuals to get inside northern Iraq," he said.
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