UK-Labour-Galloway

[Supercharts]

Memo from Saddam: We can't afford to pay Galloway more
By David Blair in Baghdad
(Filed: 23/04/2003)


Saddam Hussein rejected a request from George Galloway for more money, saying that the Labour backbencher's "exceptional" demands were not affordable, according to an official document found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad.


Full story here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/23/ngall23.xml

Isn't this illegal?

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Isn't this illegal?

He's currently sueing the Telegraph for libel. Whether the article was justified remains to be seen.

[Supercharts]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0425/p01s04-woiq.html

"The most recent - and possibly most revealing - documents were obtained earlier this week by the Monitor. The papers include direct orders from the Hussein regime to issue Mr. Galloway six individual payments, starting in July 1992 and ending in January 2003."

[Captain_Snort]

Amazing how the journalist went into a burned out building, found a shoe box, and they contained these documents, everything else was burned out?

Does it lead me to think a conspiricy to ruin people who are highly criticle of this war, and Tony Blair in general? Why yes it does.

[Supercharts]

MP may be tried as traitor

Antony Barnett and Martin Bright
Sunday April 27, 2003
The Observer

George Galloway, the anti-war Labour MP who is suing over allegations he secretly took money from Saddam Hussein, faces the prospect of a criminal prosecution for treachery.

http://observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,944392,00.html

[Frank Newgent]

George Galloway today in the US Senate:


I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever having written to me or telephoned me, without any contact with me whatsoever and you call that justice.

I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice.

I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns.

I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.

What counts is not the names on the paper. What counts is where's the money, Senator? Who paid me money, Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars? The answer to that is nobody and if you had anybody who paid me a penny you would have produced them here today.

You have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Iraq.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies.

The people who have been guilty of massive profiteering in Iraq is the US themselves and I intend to put them on trial. I don't have to answer to them, they don't rule the world


US Senator: "Hey you! Get off of my cloud!"

George Galloway: "Hey McCloud! Get off of me ewe!"

[Roadtoad]

The story so far:

By KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - British lawmaker George Galloway vehemently rejected a Senate subcommittee's claim that Saddam Hussein awarded him lucrative allocations under the U.N. oil-for-food program and accused its chairman of maligning his good name.

The subcommittee, chaired by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, claimed that Galloway allegedly funneled allocations through a fund he established in 1998 to help a 4-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukemia and received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003.

"I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf," Galloway testified Tuesday. "I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas."

Coleman later questioned Galloway's testimony. "If in fact he lied to this committee, there will have to be consequences," Coleman said at a news conference after the hearing.

Asked whether Galloway violated his oath to tell the truth before the committee, Coleman said: "I don't know. We'll have to look over the record. I just don't think he was a credible witness."

The daylong hearing was reviewing three major reports from the subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which studied in great detail how Saddam made billions in illegal oil sales despite U.N. sanctions imposed in 1991 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Coleman said Galloway and others who received oil allocations, including prominent Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, then paid kickbacks to Saddam as part of the deal. He claimed that Saddam received more than $300,000 in surcharges on allocations involving Galloway.

"Senior Hussein regime officials informed the subcommittee that the allocation holders — in this case, Galloway — were ultimately responsible for the surcharge payment and therefore would have known of the illegal, under-the-table payment," he said.

Galloway rejected that and accused Coleman of never having contacted him about the charges. He also defended his opposition to the U.N. sanctions and the U.S.-led Iraq war.

"I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq," Galloway said. "And I told the world that the case for war was a pack of lies."

The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996-2003, was designed to let Saddam's government sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods to help the Iraqi people cope with crippling U.N. sanctions.

But Saddam peddled influence by awarding favored politicians, journalists and others vouchers for oil that could then be resold at a profit. He also smuggled oil to Turkey, Jordan and Syria outside the program, often with the explicit approval of the United States and the rest of the U.N. Security Council.

As well as pointing the finger at politicians from Britain, France and Russia, committee investigators also argue that a Texas-based oil company, Bayoil, was involved in Saddam's oil-for-food schemes. U.N. Security Council members including the United States often looked the other way, they said.

"On the one hand, the United States was at the U.N. trying to stop Iraq from imposing illegal surcharges on oil-for-food contacts," Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., said at the start of the hearing. "On the other hand, the U.S. ignored red flags that some U.S. companies might be paying those same illegal surcharges."

While many of the oil-for-food claims are not new, rarely have the allegations been spelled out with so much detail or scope. Coleman's investigators have interviewed former top Iraqi officials and businessmen, who provided a behind-the-scenes look at how Saddam's grand scheme worked.

Coleman's committee also alleges that former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua received allocations worth 11 million barrels from 1999 to 2000.

Documents released Monday by the minority Democrats on Coleman's subcommittee examined two issues: Bayoil's involvement in oil-for-food and a single instance that saw Saddam's regime smuggle more than 7 million barrels of oil out of the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya, apparently with U.S. knowledge, in the weeks before the invasion in 2003.

The report found that Bayoil imported some 200 million barrels over two years starting in September 2000 and sold it to U.S. oil companies. That was at a time when Saddam was trying to tinker with the price of oil so that when he sold it, companies could be compelled to pay him kickbacks.

The report claimed that Bayoil paid "directly or indirectly" some $37 million in kickbacks to Saddam even at a time that the United States and other members of the council had realized what Saddam was doing and began ordering price hikes to quash the kickbacks scheme.

Bayoil then sold the crude to U.S. companies, though there is no evidence the companies knew about the kickbacks, the report said.

___

The only thing I can see is that Coleman might be a bit jealous of Galloway. I don't trust ANY politician.

[mummymonkey]

Watch his testimony here. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4550000/newsid_4556800/bb_wm_4556887.stm)

[Roadtoad]

Originally from the Christian Science Monitor:

Editor's note: Documents at the center of the allegations contained in this article have since been shown to be forgeries. The story detailing that Monitor conclusion is available here. The Monitor therefore acknowledges that the allegations in the documents are false and has apologized to Mr. Galloway for their publication and for the embarrassment and distress caused to him. To underline the sincerity of this apology, the Monitor has paid Mr. Galloway a sum in damages.

Newsweek, are you paying attention?

[Kopji]

Itza shame we haveta import people who get outraged at lies.

[Roadtoad]

At present, I haven't seen any of the evidence against Galloway. Frankly, if it ain't there, Galloway deserves credit for coming to the States and facing his accusers, and not letting them get away with buffaloing him on this.

[rikzilla]

Apparently there is more evidence against Galloway than just a crude forgery found in a shoebox. Personally I find two odd things competing for my skeptical attention here;
Why would a crude forgery need to be created when authentic evidence is available?
If enough authenticated evidence did not exist, why would a Senate subcommittee make public allegations against Galloway?


With Galloway looking on, Senate investigators laid out their case against him and others, presenting documents they said showed he received oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's government.

Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee, told senators Galloway had used his cancer charity "Mariam's Appeal" to conceal these allocations and provided several Oil Ministry documents referring to the charity.

Greenblatt said a senior Iraqi official interviewed by the committee's investigators again in Baghdad on Monday, had confirmed allegations against Galloway and authenticated Iraqi oil ministry documents.

The Reuters Story quoted above (http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-05-17T173607Z_01_FOR757426_RTRUKOC_0_IRAQ-UN-USA-GALLOWAY.xml)

If the Reuters report is accurate; the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has evidence that Galloway used a cancer charity as a vehicle to launder OFF money.

That's a very serious and more importantly, very specific charge. The forgeries which have been unmasked do not speak to this charge at all, so I'm guessing that there's a much wider body of evidence against Galloway.

Also, there's Galloway's speech before the subcommittee itself. It was full of self-righteous indignation and loud bluster. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, it was great tv! :D But it reminded me of that old saying; "Sound and fury, signifying nothing". IIRC that is... It put me in mind of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke; "Sometime's nothin' is a real cool hand."

Methinks Mr. Galloway may protesteth too much... :confused:
I'm looking forward to seeing Galloway's and Coleman's cards, wondering who has the cool hand here??

-z

[geni]

Originally posted by Roadtoad
At present, I haven't seen any of the evidence against Galloway. Frankly, if it ain't there, Galloway deserves credit for coming to the States and facing his accusers, and not letting them get away with buffaloing him on this.

Galloway doesn't deserve credit under any conditions ever.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by rikzilla
Methinks Mr. Galloway may protesteth too much... :confused:

Methinks he's damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. If he keeps quiet, his detractors would claim vindication, yet if he vigourously defends himself, he protests too much.

Remember, he's already won a libel action against a UK newspaper who made similar allegations, and no reliable evidence against him has emerged.

[richardm]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne
Remember, he's already won a libel action against a UK newspaper who made similar allegations, and no reliable evidence against him has emerged.

That put me in a difficult dilemma. On the one hand I'm always happy to see the Daily Telegraph pilloried in the courts. On the other hand, I'd be delighted to see Galloway take a fall. Objectionable little **** that he is.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by rikzilla
Apparently there is more evidence against Galloway than just a crude forgery found in a shoebox. Personally I find two odd things competing for my skeptical attention here;
Why would a crude forgery need to be created when authentic evidence is available?Maybe because 'authentic evidence' wasn't available or wasn't strong enough?

If enough authenticated evidence did not exist, why would a Senate subcommittee make public allegations against Galloway?Because they trusted the forged evidence until right now?

[Mephisto]

. . . I posted a string regarding Galloway's damning condemnation of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq just yesterday, but it went unnoticed. I reposted it again today along with links to Galloway's transcripts.

OUCH!

Mephisto

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Bjorn
Maybe because 'authentic evidence' wasn't available or wasn't strong enough?

[list][B]Because they trusted the forged evidence until right now?

Like I said before, the Senate subcommittee has made specific allegations that Galloway used a cancer charity to launder Saddam's dirty money. The forged papers did not say anything about that....ergo there must be other evidence which does speak to this specific charge.

I reserve judgement until I see that. Honestly, I just don't see the US Senate making such nasty charges based upon obvious forgeries. After all, they're not CBS you know.... ;)

-z

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by rikzilla
Like I said before, the Senate subcommittee has made specific allegations that Galloway used a cancer charity to launder Saddam's dirty money. The forged papers did not say anything about that....ergo there must be other evidence which does speak to this specific charge.

I reserve judgement until I see that. Honestly, I just don't see the US Senate making such nasty charges based upon obvious forgeries. After all, they're not CBS you know.... ;)

-z Well, the journalist who 'found' the documents (those that were forgeries) said something similar:

David Blair, the British reporter who first broke the story, told the BBC: "I think it would require an enormous amount of imagination to believe that someone went to the trouble of composing a forged document in Arabic and then planting it in a file of patently authentic documents and burying it in a darkened room on the off-chance that a British journalist might happen upon it and might bother to translate it. That strikes me as so wildly improbable as to be virtually inconceivable."It turns out that the 'virtually inconceivable' wasn't. This doesn't, as you point out, prove that other allegations are false, but it certainly makes me a little reluctant to say the opposite.

[geni]

Originally posted by rikzilla
Like I said before, the Senate subcommittee has made specific allegations that Galloway used a cancer charity to launder Saddam's dirty money. The forged papers did not say anything about that....ergo there must be other evidence which does speak to this specific charge.

I've seen that acusation before. I can't remeber the details though.

[Jon_in_london]

Much as I dislike Galloway, his philosophy and the fact that he exploited racial tensions just to get back into parliament, I think its excellent that we have someone like him in parliament- and whats more I think its capital that he has gone over to the over side of the pond to give 'em a taste of parliamentary bare-knuckle fist-fighting.

What I dont understand is how come some US senators can conduct a witch-hunt that potentially libels and slanders members of foreign, democratic governments. This is made particularly foul by the fact that the US seems to have benefited more than anyone from the oil for food program.

Whats that they say about people in glass housing braking other peoples windows?