(Live Thread) British Parliament member George Galloway to face oil-for-food accusers (Live Thread)

CNN.com ^ | 5/17/05 | Phil Hirschkorn

[Libloather]

British Parliament member to face oil-for-food accusers
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
Tuesday, May 17, 2005 Posted: 0746 GMT (1546 HKT)

Galloway speaks to the media after arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

(CNN) -- British Parliament member George Galloway will face his accusers when he testifies Tuesday before a U.S. Senate panel probing the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Galloway is due to appear before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which stated in a report last week that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein granted him vouchers for 20 million barrels of oil between 2000 and 2003.

**SNIP**

Galloway is scheduled to appear late Tuesday morning in Washington as the final witness in a hearing that begins at 9:30 a.m. ET.

**SNIP**

Galloway, 51, who met with Saddam several times in the 1990s, has been a leading critic of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his alliance with U.S. President George Bush in the war with Iraq. He was re-elected on an anti-war platform earlier this month.

**SNIP**

A new report from Democrats on the Senate subcommittee concludes the United States ended up with a majority of the oil lifted from Iraq after vendors paid illicit surcharges of 10 cents to 30 cents a barrel to Saddam.

**SNIP**

The Democratic report found Bayoil shipped a lot of oil allocated to a company called Italtech run by Augusto Giangrandi, a sometime Florida resident with dual Chilean-Italian citizenship.

[cyncooper]

Brit's show just played a bit more of the Coleman comments after the hearing. Not only Coleman saying there are problems with Galloway's credibility and that the documentation was not refuted in any way, but most interesting was Carl Levin being troubled---and it wasn't by the Republicans.

Levin was troubled by Galloway and the money that flowed into his "charity".

Hmmmmmmmmmm

[processing please hold]

Levin was troubled by Galloway and the money that flowed into his "charity".

Hmmmmmmmmmm

I love the smell of napalm in the morning...smells like...victory.

[FreeRep]

George Galloway is the new "Lord Haw-Haw" propaganda broadcaster.

[Libloather]

Will C-Span or any other station replay Galloway's testimony?

I'm guessing C-Span will air it this weekend. They haven't started posting their Saturday schedule just yet...

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp

[paul_fromatlanta]

I have been gone for a few hours, but I must tell you that Coleman DID present evidence. That is what preceded Galloway's testimony, all the discussion of documents and signatures. Coleman has Galloway dead to rights, and that is why Galloway was ranting. He cannot refute anything except to say those papers are forgeries, which they are NOT, as Coleman documented this morning.

I must have missed that - and it wouldn't be the first time this week I've been wrong or had my mind changed here... I was flipping between three channels and flipping my PC back and forth between work, Freep and CPAN.

[paul_fromatlanta]

Are you an American? I ask because I've yet to see you post ANYTHING supportive of the United States.

Yep. Both sides. Back a long ways with the occasional Scottish or Irish imigrant thrown in.

I'm not sure what you are talking about because I am so pro-American I tend to look at things through the lens of "what's good for America."

The post your responding was about whet the media interpretation was likely to be unless the senate committee was able to document their charges. I still believe that would have been the interpretation but I'm told that documentation was produced so the committee should be able to turn things around.

It's also important to remember that when we have differences in strategy or interpretation that make one of us less American. I believe America at this time is the best time and place in history to live and I'm for freedom of speech, self defense rights, gun rights, smaller government, personal privacy rights especially in the home, balanced budgets, freedom of religion - even for people in public office, and not pretending we have the right to tell other countries what to do - That's what used to be called a conservative.

[paul_fromatlanta]

Darn it - typo...

should have been

" It's also important to remember that when we have differences in strategy or interpretation that does not make one of us less American"

[SevenofNine]

You know what PB actually Sky news is one that busting George Galloway he calling Zionist conspiracy to discredit last time I check Sky news is Brit company HELLO

[SevenofNine]

OHHH I seeeeeeee

So Mrs George Galloway is cousin of late Yassar Arafat I SEEEEEEE

[cricket]

"Do an experiment, starting tomorrow, and for the next week, talk 10 people on the street. . .. . .

Ask them if they remember the story about the prisoner(s) at Guantanamo flushing pages of the Koran down the toilet; to stop them up, as a protest. . .

[Libloather]

Norm Coleman will be on Fox & Friends this morning...

[Miss Marple]

I know...coming up shortly! Thanks for the heads up!

[cyncooper]

It's just 6:05 here so I miss Fox and Friends usually (and did today) and am just seeing your note. However, I really appreciate the alert and will look for notes.

[voteconstitutionparty]

Galloway Senate Transcript

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1616578,00.html

[piasa]

Thanks for the ping!

FEBRUARY 1996 : (UK LABOUR MP GALLOWAY FLIES TO MOROCCO ON BEHALF OF SAAD AL-FAGIH aka AL-FAQIH TO MEET CROWN PRINCE OF MOROCCO) In February 1996, UK Labour MP George Galloway flew to Morocco for a secret meeting with the then Crown Prince of Morocco to explore a deal between the Islamic Saudi dissidents [such as British-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih, an Islamic fundamentalist who purchased a satellite phone used by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan] and the Saudi royal family. - "MP may be tried as traitor (Galloway)," by Antony Barnett and Martin Bright, The Observer (U.K.) , 04/27/03

*********************

... Two of the men contacted by Bin Laden in Britain — Khaled al Fawwaz and Ibrahim Eidarous — are now in prison awaiting extradition to the United States for their part in the embassy bombings, which killed 224 and injured thousands.
However, another senior terrorist suspect, Mustafa Nazar, is still on the loose. He spent up to two years in Dollis Hill, north London, recruiting for Al-Qaeda. A key figure in Bin Laden’s terror training camps, he left Britain in 1998 and was last seen in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban.
The telephone records have come to light following the trial last year of four Al-Qaeda terrorists who planned and carried out the bombing of the two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
According to trial documents, the telephone [the one bin Laden used] was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Saad al Fagih, 45, a bearded surgeon who heads the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda.
Al Fagih, who has been regularly used by the BBC as an expert on Bin Laden, has in the past explained that Muslim scholars said the killing of civilians, including children, was allowed by the Koran as “collateral damage” in the holy war.
It was al Fagih’s credit card which was used to help to buy the £10,500 Compact-M satellite phone in the United States and it was shipped to his home in north London, according to American court documents. His credit card was also used to buy more than 3,000 minutes of pre-paid airtime.
Last week al Fagih, who has not been arrested or charged in connection with any of these actions, said: “I am willing to speak to the authorities if they ask me about this or any other issue, but not to the press.” ...
------ "Bin Laden called UK 260 times," by Nick Fielding and Dipesh Gadhery, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 03/24/2002

**********************8

Al-Faqih, who advocates replacing the Saudi monarchy with a popularly elected government, heads the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia in London. He claimed in May that he was the real target when the Saudi Arabian government accused British civilians and diplomats of involvement in bombings four years ago.
According to a U.S. Treasury statement on Tuesday, Al-Faqih once shared an office in the late 1990s with Khaled al Fawwaz, who served as an operative for bin Laden in Britain. The exiled Saudi physician also paid for a satellite phone that bin Laden allegedly used to help carry out the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya Tanzania, it said.
While al-Faqih's movement has issued disclaimers warning users not to attribute postings on its website to al-Qaida, the Treasury statement said extremists use the site "to post all al-Qaida-related statements and images." Information available to the U.S. and British governments "shows that the messages are intended to provide ideological and financial support to al-Qaida affiliated networks and potential recruits," it said. ...------- "U.N. asked to punish two Saudi activists," by Edith M. Lederer - AP, Bakersfield Californian, 12/21/04

Speaking of Khaled al Fawwaz:

...In the mid-to-late 90s, Ziyad Khaleel finally ran afoul of federal authorities in the United States for taking his orders not from Musa Abu Marzook, but rather from the top advisors of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. In November 1996, senior al Qaeda lieutenant Khaled al-Fawwaz instructed Ziyad Khaleel to purchase a $7,500 satellite telephone for personal use by bin Laden. Between 1996 and 1998, Khaleel replenished the phone with more than 2,000 minutes of telephone air time, also at the behest of Fawwaz. Bin Laden's bustling branch office in Columbia [MO], managed by Khaleel and disguised as a low-income housing project, started attracting far too much attention. The FBI secretly raided the nondescript office and collected extensive intelligence information. -------- "“Axis of Evil” Indicted Hamas leader linked to al Qaeda activist in Midwest," by Evan Kohlmann, nationalreview.com, January 2, 2003, 9:20 a.m. , http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/815679/posts?q=1&&page=21

*****************

(My note: I'm not sure if these letters were ever authenticated or not)

... If the letters, published yesterday by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, are genuine, they give an insight into the way Bin Laden guides and incites his followers, and underline that his fundamental objective is to purge western powers from the oil rich resources of his Saudi homeland.
The letters were supposedly seized by Scotland Yard during an investigation to find Bin Laden followers in Britain who may have had knowledge of, or involvement in, the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
The inquiry led to the arrest in September 1998 of three men - Khalid al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdul Bary and Ibrahim Hussein Eidarous - who are currently appealing against extradition to the US where they would face charges relating to the attacks....
------ "Bin Laden letters order US massacre (Excerpts From Letters)," by Philip Willan in Rome and Nick Hopkins, Guardian/UK, 10/18/01

Some excerpts from the letters in the article above-

In another letter, dated April 16 1998, Bin Laden says: "America carries out the worst international terrorism. Is it not terrible terrorism that America is carrying out in Iraq on children, women and the old, having condemned them to hunger?"

(* My note: With spin like this it sounds like bin Laden could become a poster boy for Galloway's Mariam Appeal. anyway, click your heels together three times and repeat after me: "There is no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda")

"It is necessary to concentrate our efforts to kill, fight, create traps, to destroy the intruders until their defeat... Muslims should avoid internal wars... to avoid the destruction of the oil. We appeal to our brothers to exclude from the war the wealth of the Islamic nation which is about to arise." --------Extracts from the letters allegedly written by Osama bin Laden, August 23 1996

That sounds like Galloway - save the oil- I need more oil for Food vouchers to pay for a new beach house!

[piasa]

Blast from the past:

... John Sweeney, a journalist working for BBC Five Live, unearthed the fact that an Arab from whom Mr Galloway received thousands of pounds in cash for expenses in the 1990s was the same man who was named in an American court as the purchaser of a satellite telephone used by al-Qa'eda in Afghanistan.
Five years ago, Mr Galloway was investigated by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee over his financial relationship with Saad Al Fagih, a London based dissident Saudi politician. During the inquiry Mr Galloway identified more than £5,000-worth of items on his credit card bill that had been paid by Mr Fagih.
He said that all were out-of-pocket expenses. He also said that he had been given £1,800 to hand over to foreign nationals living in political exile in Britain, but refused to say who they were.
------- "100 MPs back protest over strikes on Iraq," By Andy McSmith, Chief Political Correspondent, UK Telegraph, (Filed: 15/03/2002)March 15, 2002

[Cindy]

Thanks piasa.

Thanks for this reminder.

[Fedora]

Thanks!