Ex-Wyden staffer arrested as Iraqi spy

A former aide to Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was arrested as a spy for Saddam Hussein before and after the US-led liberation of Iraq.

Susan Lindauer, who worked for Wyden when he was a congressman and later served as a press secretary to now-former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.), is "accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein," according to AP.

Lindauer says she isn’t a spy but an "anti-war activist."

She says she’s done "more to stop terrorism in this country than anyone else."

Until her arrest on March 11, Lindauer was working as a political publicist. She once she defended the Libyan government against allegations that it was responsible for the 1988 terrorist bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

In a 1998 deposition, she identified herself as Wyden’s press secretary. The accused Iraqi spy also worked for Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.).

In April, 2003, she circulated a news story alleging that American troops were making poor Iraqis pay for water. (For a link to her e-mail message, click here.)

The federal indictment charges Lindauer with conspiracy, serving as an unregistered agent for the Iraqi government, and engaging in an illegal financial transaction with a state-sponsor of terrorism, according to the Washington Post.