Galloway takes on Senate

[Belisarius]

I saw the trial on sky news, and boy I don’t thing the senate was ready for such a blistering assault on their policies in Iraq from a man on Trial. Here is an article about it, one which is less bias then some I read.

MSN News:


By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Maverick MP George Galloway angrily rejected on Tuesday as "utterly preposterous" charges by the U.S. Congress that he profited from the Iraq oil-for-food programme and used the hearing as a platform to attack the U.S.-led invasion.
Far from showing the usual deference of witnesses before Congress, Galloway defiantly told a Senate committee its evidence against him was false, condemned the investigation and demanded to know why it had not questioned him first before making the allegations.
The east London Member of Parliament appeared before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is examining how Saddam used oil to reward politicians, particularly from Russia, France and Britain, under the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. As the sharp exchange unfolded, the mood in the packed room was electric with occasional snickers from the audience at Galloway's jibes at the senators.
Galloway bluntly confronted the Republican chairman of the committee, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, and challenged the attorney to back up claims the British MP profited handsomely from the now defunct program. Some of his harshest remarks concerned Coleman's support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that ousted President Saddam Hussein.
"Now 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," Galloway said.
Galloway accused Coleman of sullying his reputation and falsely asserting that he gave money to Saddam. "You call that justice?" he asked, adding later: "This is utterly preposterous."
The MP told reporters later he felt Coleman had failed in his cross-examination. "He's not much of a lyncher," he said.
Coleman, in turn, said afterward he did not think Galloway was a "credible witness" and that if he lied to the committee there would be consequences.
A maverick kicked out of the Labour Party for his fervent opposition to the Iraq war and for personal attacks on Prime Minister Tony Blair, Galloway used the opportunity to criticize the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong, and 100,000 people have paid with their lives -- 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies," he said.
DOCUMENTS
Coleman, who did not respond to Galloway's criticism, stuck to questions over the MP's dealings in Iraq and quizzed him over Iraqi Oil Ministry documents the senator said showed he received oil allocations.
"Senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you, in fact, received oil allocations and that the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid," said Coleman, urging Galloway to provide evidence to the contrary.
The committee released documents it said showed Saddam gave Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the defunct humanitarian program.
Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, now a French senator, also was named as getting vouchers for 11 million barrels. Pasqua, who also denied the allegations, was not at the hearing.
The U.N. oil-for-food program, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was aimed at easing the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.
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. Galloway denied this.
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.
Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts, but the program has been dogged by allegations of massive fraud and charges Saddam used it to buy influence in the West.
Coleman's panel also gave details about Iraqi oil allocations to Russia's presidential council, which advises President Vladimir Putin. Senate investigators said there was no evidence Putin knew of the payments.
A report released on Monday said Saddam's government provided Putin's former chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, and the council with oil rights worth nearly $3 million in exchange for support to lift U.N. sanctions against Iraq imposed in August 1990 after the invasion of Kuwait.
The committee also said 75 million barrels of oil were allocated to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an ultranationalist Russian parliamentarian who made frequent visits to Iraq, or his political party.



[I]If anyone finds more articles on the subject please post, lets discuss *tongue*

[hormiga]

It would really suck to go through life named "Sue Pleming".... Soup Lemming.... that just plain sucks.

[Garbarsardar]

Given the nature of the evidevce, I think that nothing will come out from these investigations. Galloway was accused before, extensively probed by the British media, won damages by Daily Telegraph, an apology from CSM, and a parliament seat. Now we are all aware of the way the british partisan media, deals with allegations. (remember Kelly).
So I deduce that if there was a shred of comclusive evidence it would be out there by now. In all I think the senate subcommitte did a disservice to the whole issue, by not calling Galloway, before publicizing the allegations. Everything that the present report alledges has been in the media for more than 3 years, and had been (effectively refuted).

I do not say that Galloway did it or not. This is and it will remain beyond proof. But the behaviour of the subcommitte is helping Galloways public image, where for him it matters most. Who could imagine that a mediocre old labour lefty, would be now presented as the wronged knight who defies the senatorial dragons...


Below there are two articles from BBC, the first on media reaction and the second ...you'll see






1.George Galloway's explosive testimony before United States senators has surprised even seasoned American observers of Capitol Hill.
The explosive nature of Mr Galloways' testimony created headlines;CNN's Wolf Blitzer described the British MP's evidence as "a blistering attack on US senators rarely heard" in the seat of American power."Members of Congress are clearly not used to what goes on in the British parliament," he suggested in an interview with Mr Galloway.
The New York Times website also noted that "the vitriolic tone used by Mr Galloway was rare for a witness in a Senate hearing".
It described his appearance as "unusual".

"George Galloway seemed to catch the panel off guard with his intensely delivered denials... " the NYT said.
Before his testimony in front of senators, Mr Galloway's name was hardly on the lips of the US media, still less the US public.But the NYT said the British MP had enlivened the dry issue of abuses of the UN Oil-for-Food programme. "The unapologetic Mr Galloway put a dramatic face on a scandal that has been largely bogged down in the arcane details of diverted oil shipments, translated documents, shadowy go-betweens and questionable payments," it said.

In 2003, the Christian Science Monitor issued a public apology to Mr Galloway over a story alleging that he accepted millions of pounds from Saddam Hussein, which turned out to be based on faked documents. It headlined Mr Galloway's latest testimony: "Galloway lashes out at senators".
"Galloway's appearance was an odd spectacle on Capitol Hill," the CSM's website said."A legislator from a friendly nation, voluntarily testifying under oath, without immunity, at a combative congressional hearing where neither side showed much pretense of diplomatic niceties."

Meanwhile, the right-wing Fox News channel described the British parliamentarian as an "arch-leftie British MP".Fox political commentator Eric Shawn said Mr Galloway had "put on quite a show".The "firebrand British MP defiantly lashed out" in a series of "heated" exchanges, Mr Shawn said.


2.US 'ignored Iraq oil smuggling'

Smuggled oil made 40 times as much as oil-for-food kickbacks
The US turned a blind eye to the former Iraq regime's $8bn trade in smuggled oil, a new US Senate report says.The report says the US was well aware of both the smuggling and the kickbacks Iraq solicited from players in the UN's oil-for-food programme.
Published by Democrat minority members of a key committee, it follows charges levelled against several Russian politicians and UK MP George Galloway.
Mr Galloway has flown to Washington DC to defend himself in person.He is appearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.Others accused of receiving oil allocations from Baghdad include French former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Russian ultranationalist MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Russian former presidential aides Alexander Voloshin and Sergei Issakov.Mr Galloway, Mr Pasqua and Mr Zhirinovsky have all denied the allegations.

Unlike the previous reports, which were backed by all the committee members, the fresh accusations are authored by staff of the minority of Democrats.
They are led by Senator Carl Levin, who has built his reputation on a series of follow-the-money investigations involving such subjects as Enron and money laundering.
The new report focuses on both the $228m Saddam Hussein's regime is estimated to have made through illegal surcharges on the oil-for-food programme, and on the $8bn it made through sanctions-busting oil sales to Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.
US oversight was weak on both fronts, the report says - and sometimes amounted to facilitation of the illicit trades.
It takes the example of Bayoil, a US oil firm which was indicted by US authorities in April and was allegedly used by the three Russian politicians as a go-between with the Iraqi authorities.According to the report, the firm imported more than 200 million barrels to the US between 2000 and 2002, selling it to US companies and in the process paying $37m in illegal kickbacks to Baghdad.

George Galloway has gone to the US to deny the accusations;US agencies such as the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) failed to examine its activities, the report warns, assuming that UN agencies would do the job - despite UN resolutions which clearly made such oversight the responsibility of national governments.

In all, US buyers paid more than half the $224m in total kickbacks, the report estimates.But it also said that the far bigger smuggling trade was carried out with tacit US approval.
Much of the oil went out by land through Turkey and Syria, but much also went by sea.
The report takes the example of a series of shipments from the port of Khor al-Amaya in southern Iran in the month before the US-led coalition began its 2003 invasion.Jordan paid $53m in hard currency for 7.7 million barrels on seven tankers, all of which were explicitly allowed to pass by the US naval blockade.

"The US was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said.

"On occasion, the US actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.
"

t would really suck to go through life named "Sue Pleming".... Soup Lemming.... that just plain sucks.

:lol

[smack]

Galloway was just interviewed on Charlie Rose (a great late night American interview show. The best. The only).

Charlie had some talking heads on before Galloway, so I quickly caught up with this. I don't know how its going over in Britain, but this is huge here. I imagine the blogosphere is abuzz, which means that there will be articles and editorials in the big papers for weeks. The man is brilliant! He deftly swept aside the allegations against him and used the opportunity perfectly to accuse his accusers, something that never happens here in the states, but did this time.

I don't know what the 1,000,000+ page evidence of oil-for-food scandals will bring, or if it even has a point, or if that point is to attempt to drag people through the mud, or something more devious, or more likely innocently bungled investigating, BUT, this single day of testimony will add at least 5% to the 'The Iraq War was a mistake' population here. (It's at 60% now, according to Charlie Rose).

As an anti-war activist myself, I was excited by this. Galloway may be a bruiser. Who knows, he may even be cleverly pulling the wool over everyone about his role in scandal, however, I really doubt he is insincere regarding the war. He's re-lit a flame here in the US, and one I'm glad to see.

-Smack

[Nihil]

I'm glad that You guys in the US are getting to see the guy in action. He's had us splitting our sides with joyous mirth over here for a while now. Pity there aren't more like him, but when you see how far the combined might of two governments are willing to go to try and get rid of one angry man, I suppose it's not surprising that there aren't. And still they can't bury him.

[Dr Zoidberg]

I know almost nothing about this whole issue but when they showed clips of him on tonights news, it was just lovely to see him letting loose at a commitee that thought it was in the right. His references to Rumsfeld and Saddam and the death of soldiers over a pack of lies was just brillant and they're both issues that never get enough attention. I guess it takes an outsider to raise the issues nobody wants to talk about.

[MoROmeTe]

MP Galloway is a one ful of fire Brit orator. CNN has a good piece on it. You can check it out at cnn.cm/world. It seems that the uptight Republican lead commitee was taken by total surprise by the Brit who talked about all the things he shouldn't have talked, from the "pack of lies" to the way the way he will seek compensation for false accusations. They really should have seen this coming as before leaving for the Us he publicly declared "I'm gonna give them hell!". Both thumbs up for MP Galloway.
As for his guilt, I really can't say. And I think no one can say. Most of the evidence is taken from arhives of the Saddam regime, which can be forged and reforged for all I know and from the statements of former oficials. I really don't think they have a piece of solid evidence against Galloway, the French former minister and the Russian minister that are also cited.

[Profler]

I really don't think they have a piece of solid evidence against Galloway, the French former minister and the Russian minister that are also cited.

Interestingly enough, it would seem that although he denied all accusations, the thing that annoyed the former French minister most was being listed along side dear old George...

The commitee certainly loosed a dud when they included Galloway's name on the list without calling him for evidence, George is not the sort of man who takes criticism or accusations lying down, as the commitee discovered.

Personally, although I am dubious about his statements regarding his relationship with Saddam, Galloway simply does not strike me as the sort of man to engage in international oil trading, I think it would be fair to say that the commitee was either nudged towards this judgement or just fluffed it up unimaginably.

[Big War Bird]

Three Saddam officials have have fingered Galloway as a a part of the oil for food scandal, on of which is Tariq Aziz. Galloway was given from illegal sales to fund his political organization. Incredibly Galloway claims that he did not know his Iraqi businesss partner, and best man at his wedding was even in the oil business, much less the illegal part.

Galloway claims that he never boughta barrel of oil, etc. This is true and no one is accusing him of that, indeed it was not a crime AFAIK. However the testimony and documented evidnece show that he was knowingly taking money from Saddam asa reward for his support.

[JP226]

yea i guess those pesky facts might cause a problem for this idiot... erm i mean skillful orator. He even pissed off the democraps, they would have been willing to save his ****** no matter how much evidence is against him. Too bad...

real quick here, why is it the rest of the world is world hiding the oil for food scandal. I doubt any of the euros and aussie's and even some canadians on this board know anything about it. This is a huge scandal, the fact that saddam was paying off other world leaders to vote one way or another at the UN. Dismissing yet another treaty of the UN. Proving even more how worthless that organization is. Showing the corruption, all the way up to Kofi Annan, and nobody ever talks about it, why is that... And don't anyone say there is no evidence or what not. There is more than enough. Everyone likes to claim that bush went to iraq for oil. But the only people not on the list who recieved oil from iraq with bribes and kick backs was bush cheny and haliburton.

[MoROmeTe]

Had a quick look at CNN and found this:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- British Member of Parliament George Galloway was returning to the UK Wednesday confident he won a fiery showdown with U.S. senators who have accused him of profiting from the U.N.'s defunct oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Galloway said he was "absolutely" convinced he had been vindicated from allegations that he received vouchers for 20 million barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein's regime.

"These people think they can smear people without them having the right to speak back and this time I got that right and I knocked them for six," he told reporters before leaving the U.S.

He said after his appearance before the Senate panel Tuesday that his accusers had little credibility "outside of Washington."

But the panel's Republican chairman, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, hit back, telling media after the session that Galloway's credibility was "very suspect."

Galloway told CNN that while Saddam's regime shared a "lot of responsibility" for deaths in Iraq, so too did the policies of Washington and London.

Galloway, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, called the Senate panel's investigation the "mother of all smokescreens" used to divert attention from the "pack of lies" that led to the 2003 invasion.

"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001," he told Coleman.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives -- 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies, 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever, on a pack of lies."

He added: "Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported."

The Respect MP said he would continue to demand the withdrawal of U.S. and UK forces from Iraq following his fiery appearance in Washington.

He told CNN the U.S. and British governments were no longer believed in their statements on Iraq and that their forces could not be part of any solution there.

Galloway's appearance before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee was the first by a politician allegedly involved in the oil-for-food corruption scandal.

In a report last week, the subcommittee stated that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam granted Galloway vouchers for 20 million barrels of oil between 2000 and 2003.

Galloway strongly disputed that allegation Tuesday.

"I am not now or ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf," Galloway testified.

He also said he did not own a company that trades in oil.

"If you had any evidence of that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this (committee today)," Galloway said.

Coleman, a former district attorney, told Galloway before his sworn testimony that "senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you, in fact, received oil allocations and that the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid."

Galloway challenged that accusation in his opening statement.

"Now, I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you're remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," he told Coleman.

Rumsfeld comparison
Galloway, 51, is a leading critic of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his alliance with U.S. President George W. Bush in the war in Iraq. He was re-elected on an anti-war platform earlier this month.

He said he was "friendly" with former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and met him many times but that he met with Saddam only twice -- in 1994 and in 2002 -- the last time to persuade Saddam to allow U.N. weapons inspectors into the country.

He said he had met with Saddam "exactly as many times as Donald Rumsfeld has met with him."

"The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and give him maps," Galloway said in his heated opening statement.

"I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second occasion, I met him to try and persuade him to allow Hans Blix and U.N. inspectors back into country."

Rumsfeld visited Baghdad to meet Saddam as President Reagan's Middle East envoy in the 1980s, when the U.S. sided with Iraq in its war with Iran. Blix was chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq before the war.

Galloway complained that the panel had determined his guilt without speaking to him.

"You have my name on lists provided to you... by the convicted bank robber and fraudster and con man Ahmed Chalabi, who many people, to their credit, in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq," Galloway told the panel.

Other allegations reportedly came from Iraqi detainees.

"In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Air Base [Afghanistan], in Guantanamo Bay -- including, if I may say, British citizens being held in those places -- I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances," he said.

The Senate subcommittee has alleged in recent days that a number of European politicians were rewarded by Saddam for supporting Iraq's bid to lift economic sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Europeans implicated
In addition to Galloway, the panel also implicated former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, who allegedly was allocated 11 million barrels.

"I wrote to Mr. Coleman," Pasqua said Sunday, "and I told him that all allegations about myself are false."

Russian Deputy Parliament Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who was accused Monday of receiving 76 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil, denied the accusation.

"I've never signed any contract and never received a cent from Iraq," Zhirinovsky told a Russian TV interviewer.

CNN's Phil Hirschkorn contributed to this report.

At worst they'll drop the charges against him for fear of his foul mouth...

[Pyrrus]

I watched the whole thing live on BBC news 24. I just loved the way he thew all these allegations at the Committee who were totally unpreared and his skilful oratory made it alot impressive. He is definately a man of great dignity and deserves nothing but credit for standing up for his beliefs against much criticism and allegations for the past three years. As former amateur boxer he is never afraid to take up a challenge. These allegations against him have been present for three years now and have been proved false in court so i do believe that it is unlikely that he is guilty. Perhaps he has just attracted these claims because he is such a renegade MP.

I think this definately demonstarted the difference between British and American politics.

[Profler]

Originally posted by Big War Bird@May 18 2005, 12:51 PM
Three Saddam officials have have fingered Galloway as a a part of the oil for food scandal, on of which is Tariq Aziz. Galloway was given from illegal sales to fund his political organization. Incredibly Galloway claims that he did not know his Iraqi businesss partner, and best man at his wedding was even in the oil business, much less the illegal part.

Galloway claims that he never boughta barrel of oil, etc. This is true and no one is accusing him of that, indeed it was not a crime AFAIK. However the testimony and documented evidnece show that he was knowingly taking money from Saddam asa reward for his support.

While I could easily be incorrect, I believe that at the time of the scandal the only political organisation Galloway belonged to was the Labour party.

yea i guess those pesky facts might cause a problem for this idiot... erm i mean skillful orator. He even pissed off the democraps, they would have been willing to save his ****** no matter how much evidence is against him. Too bad...

I'm afraid you misunderstand George, he couldn't give a damn who might have been able to help him, he does not divide. The Senate as a whole went to war and the Senate as a whole have accused him, that appears to be the way he is considering the matter.

What he appears to have objected to most of all is having been condemned in absentia by a foreign organisation.

[Chris the Haggis]

As a fellow Scot, I'd like to say a bit about Galloway, or 'Gorgeous George' as some over here know him. He isn't the knight in shining armour that some have been making him out to be; even if he hasn't taken backhanders from Saddam etc, he sucked up to him big-style when it was common knowledge that he was a mass-murdering dictator: "Sir, I salute your strength, your courage, your indefatigability" (no joke&#33 were his words.

He's simply an arrogant anti-establishment figure with a taste for self-publicity. I doubt many here (the UK) take him seriously - he was elected for his anti war stance and precious little else.

[Profler]

He's simply an arrogant anti-establishment figure with a taste for self-publicity. I doubt many here (the UK) take him seriously - he was elected for his anti war stance and precious little else.

Demonstrated by the extremely dirty campaign he fought in Bethnal Green and indeed by the fact that he abandoned his constitutents in Scotland and chose instead to stand in a predominantly Muslim and anti-war constituency in London.

[JP226]

for some reason that does not surprise me, he's just like so many other politicians, dirty arrogant bastards that knows how to talk infront of a crowd

[MoROmeTe]

Maybe, but one has to give him the fact that he makes a few very interesting points (the smoscreen and the pack of lies) and some very interesting comparisons (met Saddam twice, just like Rumsfeld). His style is good and also he has some facts backing him up, from what I gather. He is not personally linked othervise that through friendship with the man who sold and bought the Irakian oil. Friendship does not equal foul play, except in the heads of American elected representatives lookin to cover the fact that the War in Iraq is costly in man and money. But I digress... The man seems to be able tostand up for himself and I admire that...

[MoROmeTe]

Originally posted by Chris the Haggis@May 18 2005, 07:09 AM
As a fellow Scot, I'd like to say a bit about Galloway, or 'Gorgeous George' as some over here know him. He isn't the knight in shining armour that some have been making him out to be; even if he hasn't taken backhanders from Saddam etc, he sucked up to him big-style when it was common knowledge that he was a mass-murdering dictator: "Sir, I salute your strength, your courage, your indefatigability" (no joke&#33 were his words.

He's simply an arrogant anti-establishment figure with a taste for self-publicity. I doubt many here (the UK) take him seriously - he was elected for his anti war stance and precious little else.

He's simply an arrogant anti-establishment figure with a taste for self-publicity. I doubt many here (the UK) take him seriously - he was elected for his anti war stance and precious little else.
Yes, but there are fever and fever of those remaining everywhere and almost none in the US. I salute a good selfserving, straight man that can fight for himself and take a "to hell with you all if you mess with me without solid evidence" with the Senate.

[OTZ]

Originally posted by JP226@May 18 2005, 08:00 AM
real quick here, why is it the rest of the world is world hiding the oil for food scandal. I doubt any of the euros and aussie's and even some canadians on this board know anything about it. This is a huge scandal, the fact that saddam was paying off other world leaders to vote one way or another at the UN. Dismissing yet another treaty of the UN. Proving even more how worthless that organization is. Showing the corruption, all the way up to Kofi Annan, and nobody ever talks about it, why is that... And don't anyone say there is no evidence or what not. There is more than enough. Everyone likes to claim that bush went to iraq for oil. But the only people not on the list who recieved oil from iraq with bribes and kick backs was bush cheny and haliburton.

yep - agreed. this is a big deal. one with far reaching consequences for everyone involved.
i too find it astonishing that this story gets little play - especially here in canada (i gueess the imminent collapse of our government takes precedence.)

whether galloway is guilty or not doesnt really concern me. my hope is that in the end, the UN is completely overhauled. i have always viewed it as a defunct, powerless, waste of time, effort and money. even though i am a very strong supporter of current US foreign policy, i found the UN's inabliity to stop the US-led invasion in iraq absolutely hilarious. zero effort. league of nations flashback anyone?

i will admit though, galloway put on quite a show.

[Big War Bird]

WASHINGTON — The firebrand British member of Parliament who has been accused of accepting oil vouchers as part of the Oil-for-Food (search) scandal told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday he did nothing wrong and accused the United States of diverting attention from their own crimes in Iraq by implicating him.

George Galloway (search) said he met Saddam Hussein "as many times as [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and give him maps.

"I met [Saddam] to try and persuade him to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back in the country, a rather better use of the meetings than your own secretary of defense," Galloway told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Investigations Subcommittee.

Galloway, who arrived in the United States late Monday night, argued that documents suggesting he got the vouchers are bogus and that the Iraqi officials who ratted him out are lying.

"You have the gall to quote a source without ever having asked me if the allegations were true, that I am the 'owner of a company which has made substantial profits from oil for food,'" Galloway said, noting that he owns no companies besides a media firm in London.

"You had no business to carry a quotation utterly unsubstantiated and falsely implying otherwise," he said. "You've already found me guilty before I have had a chance to come here and defend myself."

Galloway previously told reporters that he feels the accusations are a political setup arranged by the Bush administration and Republicans who strongly supported the president's war in Iraq. He also acknowledged that his relationship with former Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz (search) was friendly.

Prior to the hearing, Galloway blasted subcommittee chairman Sen. Norm Coleman (search), R-Minn., and his colleagues as being a "group of Christian fundamentalists and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of neo-con George Bush and the right-wing hawks."

Coleman named Galloway as the recipient of payoffs totaling 20 million barrels of oil through the corrupt Oil-for-Food program.

Speaking at the beginning of the hearing, Coleman said Galloway was allotted 20 million barrels of oil to enrich himself in exchange for his support for Saddam Hussein's regime. Majority Counsel for the committee Mark Greenblatt then testified that the barrels came in six phases during the Oil-for-Food program.

"Saddam Hussein's chief lieutenant, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, confirmed in an interview with the subcommittee that Galloway received allocations. In addition ... Ramadan confirmed that Galloway was granted allocations, quote, 'because of his opinions about Iraq. He wants to lift embargo against Iraq.'"

Other Saddam regime officials confirmed that Galloway received allocations, Greenblatt said. He added that one document "indicates that the recipient of this oil allocation was Mariam Appeal (search), the foundation established by George Galloway, ostensibly to help a four-year-old Iraqi girl named Mariam who was suffering from leukemia. Therefore, it appears that George Galloway used a children's cancer foundation to conceal his oil transaction."
He then said the transactions were conducted through Galloway's agent, Fawaz Zuraiqat, a Jordanian who is president of Middle East Advanced Semiconductor Inc.

Galloway called the accusations a lie.

"This is beyond the realm of the ridiculous," Galloway said, denying additional allegations that Galloway paid $300,000 for surcharges for the transaction through Mariam Appeal.

As he got off the plane in Washington on Monday night, Galloway denied the allegations and said the evidence against him was forged. But in the hearing on Tuesday, when presented with the documents exhibited by Groves, Galloway would not say one way or the other whether he thought the materials were forgeries. He did say the information in them is "fake."

An American Connection

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.

Coleman's subcommittee has released three reports since Thursday exploring how Saddam made billions in illegal oil sales despite U.N. sanctions imposed in 1991 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Subcommittee's staffers also testified about other illegal transactions committed by Russian, French and American individuals and businessmen who sought to profit from Iraq's oil trade.

In a report released Monday night, investigators alleged that Washington looked the other way as Texas oil company Bayoil (search) bought Iraqi crude and sold it to American refineries. As a member of the U.N. Security Council, the United States allowed Saddam to pocket billions of dollars smuggling oil to Jordan, Turkey and Syria, it said.

Click here to read the report about Iraqi oil allocations to the Russian presidential council (pdf).

Counsel for minority staff Dan Berkovitz testified that from September 2000 until late September 2002, the Iraqi government demanded that purchasers of Iraqi oil under the Oil-for-Food program pay a per-barrel surcharge to the Iraqi regime. The surcharges were illegal because they raised the sales price of Iraqi oil that was determined by the United Nations. The surcharges were also paid into accounts outside the control of the United Nations, violating U.N. sanctions, Berkovitz said.

Iraq earned $228 million from the surcharges, including about $4.7 million from U.S. company Bayoil and former Russian official Vladimir Zhirinovsky (search), Greenblatt told the panel. In all, Berkovitz said that the 525 million barrels of Iraqi oil — about 660,000 barrels per day — that ended up in U.S. hands during the two-year surcharge period amounted to $118 million in illegal surcharges paid to Iraq by the United States. He pointed out that U.S. money was not paid directly to Iraq, but to oil traders, allocation holders and various other middlemen that served as conduits for the Iraqi Oil Ministry's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO).

"This means that oil imported into the U.S. financed about 52 percent of the illegal surcharges paid to the Hussein regime ... These percentages roughly correspond to the percentages of Iraqi oil sent to the U.S. and elsewhere during this period," Berkovitz said, adding that Bayoil appears to be the only company that knew it was paying the surcharge.

Bayoil was responsible for importing 200 million of the 525 million barrels of oil received by the United States, he said.

The committee singled out the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, which the United Nations repeatedly warned about Bayoil's scheme. It cited an apparent misunderstanding in which U.S. authorities assumed the United Nations would monitor individual companies, while at the United Nations, Oil-for-Food officials thought that was the responsibility of national governments.

The end result was that before the United Nations managed to squeeze out the surcharges imposed by Iraq, the United States failed to stop the illegal payments, Berkovitz said.

"The State Department and OFAC took no additional steps to ensure no American companies were paying surcharges, or even to inquire about the nature of the trade in Iraqi oil. U.S. authorities also failed to respond to requests by United Nations officials for assistance in obtaining information about potential sanctions violations by Bayoil," he said.

In April, Bayoil USA owner David Chalmers (search) and three other executives were indicted in U.S. District Court for allegedly funneling kickbacks to Saddam. Chalmers has denied any wrongdoing.

But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., ranking minority member on the subcommittee, said responsibility for the misdeeds extends far beyond Chalmers and company.

"There's a pattern here of erratic and inconsistent enforcement of sanctions on Iraq. On the one hand, the United States is at the U.N. trying to stop Iraq from imposing illegal surcharges on oil-for-food contracts; on the other hand, the U.S. ignored red flags that some U.S. companies might be paying those same illegal surcharges," Levin said.

Aside from Bayoil's alleged violations, Berkovitz said that a different U.S. company that chartered ships for Jordan called the U.S. Commerce Department when it became concerned that a ship was being used to transport illegally 7.7 million barrels of Iraqi oil destined for Jordan, which paid $53 million in cash for them. The company's general counsel was later told by a State Department official that the department was "aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action."

The Russian and French Connections

As for Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist former parliamentarian traded on his longtime friendship with Hussein and mutual dislike for the West to win 75 million barrels in oil allocations that resulted in profits to Iraq of $8.6 million, according to Greenblatt. Zhirinovsky's distaste for the United States did not stop him from dealing with Bayoil, however, and he assigned his allocation of 5 million barrels "in exchange for a hefty commission" of about $850,000.

In other transactions, Bayoil paid commissions for oil to companies that the committee could not locate or identify. Because Bayoil already had a deal with the Russian and had used code words to describe its relationship to Zhirinovsky, "it is reasonable to conclude that those payments were, in fact, commissions to Vladimir Zhirinovsky," Greenblatt said.

Greenblatt also presented documents that showed that former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua was granted allocations from Iraq, but fearing public scandal, he had his agent, Bernard Guillet, sign for the deal. Guillet was detained two weeks ago for charges relating to Oil-for-Food transactions, he said.