This is GORGEOUS??? (Nice lefty eye bags and wrinkles.)
Posted on 05/17/2005 1:27:30 PM PDT by Brilliant
WASHINGTON - British lawmaker George Galloway denounced U.S. senators on their home turf Tuesday, denying accusations that he profited from the U.N. oil-for-food program and accusing them of unfairly tarnishing his name.
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., questioned Galloway's honesty and told reporters, "If in fact he lied to this committee, there will have to be consequences."
Galloway's appearance was an odd spectacle on Capitol Hill: 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.
"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," Galloway told Coleman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee.
He then accused Coleman of maligning his name before giving him a chance to defend himself and of using the oil-for-food investigation to hide the failures of U.S. policies in Iraq.
"Senator, this is the mother of all smoke screens," he said.
The panel is one of several congressional committees investigating allegations that Saddam Hussein manipulated the $64 billion oil-for-food program to get kickbacks and build international opposition to U.N. sanctions against Iraq set up after the 1991 Gulf War. The program was created as an exception to the sanctions, allowing Saddam to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and other humanitarian items.
Coleman's panel last week released documents that it says shows that Galloway and other international figures received valuable oil allocations from Saddam to reward them for their opposition to sanctions. The allocations could be resold for a profit. Among the officials identified besides Galloway were former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, both of whom denied wrongdoing.
Coleman's subcommittee claimed that Galloway funneled allocations through the Mariam Appeal — 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. Coleman also alleged that Galloway was linked to kickbacks to Saddam, saying the Iraqi leader received more than $300,000 in surcharges on allocations involving Galloway.
Galloway vehemently rejected the accusations.
"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 Baghdad," he said.
He said that Coleman's panel based some of its accusations on the same fake documents used by The Daily Telegraph newspaper, which he sued for libel and won a $1.4 million libel judgment. The committee says it used different documents.
Coleman pressed Galloway on his relationship with Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat. Galloway described Zureikat as the second largest contributor to the Mariam Appeal, while congressional investigators consider him Galloway's intermediary in receiving oil proceeds.
Asked if he knew that Zureikat was involved in oil deals with Iraq in 2001, Galloway said he knew Zureikat was doing extensive business in Iraq, but didn't know the details.
When Coleman reacted skeptically, Galloway told him, "There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you."
Galloway also said it was "beyond the realm of the ridiculous" that he would give $300,000 in kickbacks to Saddam.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, both Coleman and the panel's top Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, questioned Galloway's credibility. Asked if 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."
Galloway has been an outspoken opponent of both Iraq wars and of the U.N. sanctions, which he said were killing innocent Iraqis. He was expelled from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party after urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq. Galloway was recently re-elected to Parliament this month as a representative of his own anti-Iraq war Respect party.
Yeah, I think you're right. It's pretty amazing to me that they'd make the allegation, though, without some pretty good evidence. Apparently the evidence they've got was the statement of some Iraqi officials who were involved. But there's gotta be a paper trail of some kind.
Getting a London or Swiss bank to produce it though might be difficult.
Interesting you should invoke that quote...
As it turned out, the original recipient of that question in a Senate Committe was proven right 40 years down the road.
And the Pinko Brit, who would have gotten b!tch slapped by Winston Churchill from Whitehall to the Cliffs of Dover (and over the edge) if he had been alive in 2003, did'nt invoke that question himself. And probably for the same reason.
It may not be stupid if he's innocent. And this may be the last we will hear about it if that is the case.
Course, as you say, it would be very interesting if it turned out that he was guilty, and it could be proven.
Maybe, maybe not. It might have depended on his age - Winston Churchill used to be a Liberal MP.
Interesting that this was the only sound bite used by NPR in their newscasts today. Coincidence? Me thinks he doth protest too much.
Yeah, it sounds like he's saying that the documents were forged, rather than that the documents don't support the allegations.
I am surprised the scumbag dems on the Committee didn't side with Galloway much more vigorously. Afterall, they've long taken orders from the same communist/neocommunist commisars.
So if he doesn't protest he is guilty, but if he does he is guilty? For all I don't like Galloway, he was right on one thing - the committee should have asked him to speak before pronouncing him guilty, especially when they messed up the so-called guilty documents.
Maybe they can but what effect would it have?
He not an American citizen and he's not subject to any of congress's authority....or do I have it wrong?
I was thinking of the 1940 edition of Winston.
The Torrie PM.
They can only charge him with anything if he lied. Galloway is not stupid - he wouldn't be there if he would incriminate himself.
Lets be honest here, the Senate has no power over him even if he did lie.
So not of the post 1945 pro-European either? :)
Even if he did commit perjury (which is almost a certainty), the fact that he's a duly elected leader of the government of an ally means realistically that we could never lay a finger on the SOB.
The best that we could hope for would be an international prosecution, but that will never happen. In a more sane world, he would be prosecuted within his own country, but that's not going to happen either.
Not a US lawyer but by my reckoning once he stepped foot in the United States he subjected himself to US juristiction. Once he took the oath in the senate understanding that he was subject to perjury, well, he's subject to perjury! We tend to extradite folk whenever you ask.... that is why I actually think this is one massive PR blunder. I don't think he would've gone if there was truth in the specific allegations. THe daft thing about this is whilst he accuses the committee of being a 'smokescreen' for the 'failure in Iraq' - he is actually using it as a smokescreen to bring up the old arguments about WMD rather than concentrating on the fact that Iraq has an Iraqi government free from the grip of an evil dictator and a future in the peoples gift. This really is a PR disaster. I'm stunned the US let him in.
That was what Mr. Welch said to Senator J. McCarthy back in `51, and it was pure hyperbole. (In English, 'horse-feathers'.)
Where?
the fact that he's a duly elected leader of the government of an ally means realistically that we could never lay a finger on the SOB.
Which Government is he the elected leader of?
The best that we could hope for would be an international prosecution, but that will never happen. In a more sane world, he would be prosecuted within his own country, but that's not going to happen either.
Americans are not subject to any international court so how could america prosecute anyone? And prosecuted for what?
And I don't like Galloway, and didn't like him years before you had even heard the name, but is no evidence, insinuation from war criminals or false evidence now enough to indict?
By sanctimonious little twist, you're referring to the man that beat the living dog snot out of that Carter era incompetent Fritz Mondale?
US Legal complications for Galloway?
In a Clintonian parsing, he said nothing about receiving vouchers from Saddam, only oil itself. We shall see how things shake out.
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