Posted on 05/17/2005 9:32:10 AM PDT by areafiftyone
May 17, 2005 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British MP George Galloway told the U.S. Congress on Tuesday he rejected charges he profited from the Iraq oil-for-food program and complained he was being treated unfairly by a Senate committee.
"I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf," he told the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as he began refuting the committee's accusations.
"I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf," Galloway said.
Addressing the Republican chairman of the committee, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, he added: "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 was a witness before the committee that is examining how ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein used oil to reward politicians, particularly from Russia, France and Britain, under the United Nations oil-for-food program.
Galloway, a maverick kicked out of the British Labour Party for his fervent opposition to the Iraq war and for personal attacks on Prime Minister Tony Blair, has dismissed allegations by the committee that he benefited from the program.
The committee last week released documents it said showed Saddam gave Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the defunct humanitarian program.
I had to lighten up a little bit this morning after having watched George Galloway on FOX News. What a pompous jerk that guy is!
Someone should introduce this jerk to Jack Bauer.
I thought the same thing: He doesn't categorically deny the Coleman report and/or say, "OK, these documents would be damning if they reflect what actually happened, but they do not; I appear to have been carefully framed by the Saddam regime."
Instead, he talks about how he (personally) never owned, saw, took a bath in, etc., any barrel of oil. A little too cute.
God, it is awful to have to admit it but the slimeball won hands down. I had been looking forward to this for days, anticipating the vast reams of damning evidence exposing this charlatan for the fraud that he is but in the event the Committee never laid a glove on him, they were pathetic. The jerk of a chairman was billed as the next greatest thing since Joe McCarthy but he was as limp wristed as Liberace in San Francisco bath house.
Look, Galloway sums up for me everything that I loathe and find detestable in the British hard left but the fact remains his perormance was masterful, the so called evidence wasn't worth the paper it was written on. All we got was a live, prime time broadcast on CNN and the BBC allowing this windbag to spout all the shi-ite that he's been blowing off to quarter filled public meetings for the best part of two decades except that here he had a worldwide audience - I'm truly disgusted, if this is the best this Committe can come up with they should pack up now.
What a dorky defense. A good lawyer would tear him to shreds.
I want to know how the Clinton administration took care of any problems for the U.N. that could have prevented this from happening or exposed it much sooner. You can bet that a rule or procedure somewhere was modified that made it all possible.
Wow. She looks good on water!
And this is what they get paid for? Jeeze no wonder DUers were jumping for joy.
I can't wait to see '2046.' I've heard there are some steamy scenes!
George Galloway is the new "Lord Haw-Haw" propaganda broadcaster.
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