Posted on 05/17/2005 1:27:30 PM PDT by Brilliant
You know, he was'nt too bad either. At least he did'nt like "Bolsheviks". He sure could turn a phrase, too. That "Iron Curtain" one sure was a winner...
:)
Seriously though, I wonder what his reaction to the modern day Labor Party would be if he could see it? I suspect it would much the same as Harry Truman's would be if he was able to see the current pack of 'rats.
He has also denied this as well. In fact the whole point of saying that he had never bought, sold, seen oil...etc is that he could only do it with vouchers.
Perjury isn't a legistlative thing, he would be at odds with the Judiciary.
I would doubt that he is anymore innocent of being on the Iraqi payroll than Scott Ritter was. Whether Galloway actually directly received money from the sale of oil allocations may be questionable.
Both he and Ritter were long time mouthpieces for Saddam. It is well established that Ritter received money from Saddam through an Iraqi-American intermediary and the Miriam Fund was a conduit for cash to Galloway and his family.
On the issue of contempt of congress, the committee would have to find him in contempt and then persuade the AG to charge him. The US would then have to ask for the UK to send him on back.
I'd love to see Galloway in a US prison...
Yes, I thought the Senators were very poor and Galloway handled them easily. When you are a decade out with the exact dates of your main evidence, and spend 5 minutes rambling when asking a question you are not going to trouble a man vastly experienced in confrontational British politics and TV.
"In a more sane world, he would be prosecuted within his own country, but that's not going to happen either."
Sadly, he has just been to court in the UK. He took a newspaper who levelled similar allegations against him to court for libel - he won something like £150,000 in damages. I actually am starting to believe he really did have nothing to do with any oil transfers, and this whole stupid, ill thought out senate thing has completely distracted everyones eye from the real problems with George Galaway and the appeasement he stands for.
All other things being equal our pre-packaged, airbrushed, scripted American senators will lose out in open debate to rough and tumble British MPs. Those Brits aren't afraid to mix up it up with anyone including hecklers. Our Senators, by contrast, try to have the hecklers arrested.
I agree. I give you an example that I previously touched on and I have noticed this in other US committees. When a Senator asks a question they don't ask one sharp, precise hard-hitting question, but ramble on about their policies for minutes on end and make five nebulous points when one crystalline sentence would do.
I think it stems from your poor political interviews on TV. In the UK there are interviewers who even interrupt the PM and look at them (politicians) as if they are pieces of s**t. This makes for good democracy.
Galloway's problem is that he doesn't know who's got what on him. Or what else is out there. This sounds as though it may have been a fishing expedition on his part.
And maybe a warning shot across the bows of any American pol who had his/her mitts in Oil For Food.
That's what I thought.
The money was laundered. They didn't ask him if he knew any person or entity that received funds.
His wife got some as "salary" through the charity. The Senators were second rate interrogators.
Yes. I believe it is entirely possible that this guy is innocent of taking bribe-oil from Saddam-- which just makes his servitude to Saddam all the more jaw-dropping.
If a Senator in the US were this closely allied to Saddam, it would be nothing short of scandalous-- and said Seantor would certainly not survive re-election.
Curious.
I'll agree with that one.
I understand if he commits a crime while on our soil he's subject to our laws but I just wasn't sure how it worked with contempt of congress.
It's strange that the UK intelligence services and the US Senate do not have proof but you do. Are you in the CIA? :)
Maybe you are mistaking his friendship to the Arab world to Saddam. He has always called Saddam a brutal dictator.
Might there also be some lingering resentment of anyone Celtic against anyone named "Norman"? Or of anyone with "Gal" in his name against anyone with "man" in his name? Twice?
I hope that was a joke!
Are you saying he was not actively working in Saddam's interests?
"It's strange that the UK intelligence services and the US Senate do not have proof but you do. Are you in the CIA? :)"
It's strange why the US Senators and their staff didn't bother to read Brit news articles about his wife's salary and his expensive Portuguese villa. Many were here on FR. He admitted the "salary." BTW the wife? Yasser Arafat's niece.
The Senators were third rate. If the Jordanian gave him money he would have said it was for a different reasons. Politicians know plenty about these things. I think they weren't prepared for being put on trial themselves via various lib-buzz details.
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