Destination: Baghdad

Who'd of thunk the hot spot this summer would be Baghdad? But as this clever article in the St. Petersburg Times notes, the new destination for congressional junketeers ain't the golf courses of Hawaii, but the Green Zone in Baghdad.

The story rightly notes that there's a lot of good that can come from members of Congress seeing actual conditions in Iraq (although the obvious danger, like with Walter Reed, is that congressional delegations are sometimes only shown the sunny side of things).

There's not much in the article that's shocking, but the figures about the Iraq junkets (cost and frequency) are illuminating. Breaking it down, the newspaper finds:

309 members of Congress who traveled to Iraq as of March 2006. They have taken 522 government-paid trips.

14 Florida members who have been to Iraq at least once.

$4,381 Per-hour cost of C-130 plane used to fly members into Baghdad.

$1,500 Per-hour cost of a Black Hawk helicopter used to fly members around Baghdad.

$1,200 Per diem for lawmakers' room and board in Kuwait. In Jordan it is $800. (Note: Officials refuse to provide figure for Iraq.)