Washington ? After a five-day trip to Iraq that drew harsh criticism from Republicans, two Democratic congressmen said Wednesday that they had every right to go there and speak their minds, and they still oppose a U.S. attack on Iraq.

Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington and David Bonior of Michigan, who returned Tuesday night from Iraq, cited their military service in Vietnam to justify their visit to Iraq and to caution against war.

“We paid. We did our part,” McDermott said. “Nobody is going to accuse us of being traitors to our country. A democracy is based on dissent and asking the right questions.”

Critics have compared the pair’s visit to Baghdad to actress Jane Fonda’s trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam War; conservatives ridiculed Fonda as a traitor for decades.

Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Tex., who spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said Bonior and McDermott seemed to be “pro-Iraq.”

“You can’t go cavorting around with the enemy and be a great American,” Johnson said.

The two congressmen said they supported Iraqi disarmament through the U.N. inspection process, but not a forced regime change there, which the Bush administration calls for.

“The purpose of our trip was to make it very clear to the officials in Iraq how serious the United States is about going to war. And they will have war unless these inspections are allowed to go unconditionally, unfettered and open,” Bonior said. “(Weapons inspectors) did more disarmament in seven years than the entire Gulf War.”

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., accompanied the pair on the trip but did not join them in Wednesday’s news conference.