Posted on 07/15/2007 2:38:10 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
GEORGE GALLOWAY, the MP who campaigned against the Iraq war, is to be suspended from parliament over his links to the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The parliamentary standards watchdog will rule this week that Galloway failed properly to declare his links to a charitable appeal partially funded from money made by selling Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein, according to a source close to the inquiry. The one-month suspension for Galloway, often referred to as
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Not really.
One month suspension is no punishment at all. It might even further endear him to his supporters.
Further, the case against him is extremely weak. He says he was the unknowing recipient of dirty money. Even if he's lying how guilty is he? Using the same standards how many U.S. politicians who've accepted money from American companies who took the same dirty money are also guilty? Has anyone even bothered to try to trace the connections? We know that several American oil companies took dirty money from Saddam. They must have made political contributions - all major companies do. So who were the recipients?
True, Galloway took money - indirectly - from foreign source but that seems to be legal in England and anyway how important is that? These days, in the global economy, money has no nationality.
I don't believe it. He may be a socialist and an athiest but he's no mans fool.
Well lookey here at who was taking bribes?? Wonder how many in our congress had envolopes from Saddamn.
Pray for W and Our Troops
This is common knowledge, see the post #21 (which was taken from Wikipedia...I know...I dislike Wikipedia, but it is a good source of quick, and to some degree, accurate info)
I know that in his current life, it is difficult to evision him has a Trotskyite or a Soviet Lover, but he did write for The Nation, and was at one time a committed leftist.
To be fair, I had never paid him much attention until he began speaking out against Saddam Hussein, that was all I ever knew of him up to that point. It was only when I began praising him that people pointed out his nefarious past to me...:)
If I met him now, I would shake his hand, though...I tend to view him kind of the same way I view David Horowitz, but...David Horowitz had an utter and complete break with the philosophy of the left...Hitchens apparently has not.
Thanks for the link...
Could you please try thinking instead of mindlessly spewing dogma ONE time? You response typically knee jerk and completely irrational.
Prior to this he had taken money from thugs and faced NO penalty. NOW he has been found guilty and is being, however modestly, punished. That is a step in the correct direction no matter how desperately the hysteric Left wants to deny reality.
Also, after his flaming defense, to be prove a liar makes all his future actions suspect to all thinking individuals. If he was so strenuous in lying to us all along about this, what else is he lying about?
Now anything Galloway champions is going to be tainted by association. That it may increases his status amount his fringe loser set is irrelevant.
The fringes were going to blindly worship him no matter what. No thinking person cares in the least what those bigoted clowns feel since they know full well they are as immune to reason as any other gang of political, religious or racial fanatics.
I agree.
You're on the fringes...just the other fringes.
Galloway was severely punished in his debate with Hitchens. That kind of punishment is very effective. Here he'll just deny he's a liar and go back to parliament in a month where he'll give speeches purporting to show how crooked the justice system is.
Stop preaching to the choir and wake up.
Yes. Try entering the keywords "oil4food" , "oilforfood," "Delta oil," "delta oil services," "occidentalpetroleum," "occidental," "scott ritter," "shakir al khafaji," "alkhafaji," "samir vincent," "vincent," "elgindi," "tonypacific," "anthonyelgindy," "mohammedalamoudi," "coastal corp," "coastal," "bay oil," "wyatt," and "OscarWyatt."
For example : NEWSWEEK: Democrat Donor received $22 million in "Oil for Food" Scandal
Also see
1990 : (RICHARD BRANSON & SIR EDWARD HEATH FLY TO IRAQ TO RETRIEVE HOSTAGES THAT IRAQ TOOK : BRANSON MEETS WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN - SEE VIRGIN AIRLINES; OTHER VISITORS INCLUDE RAMSEY CLARK, JOHN CONNALLY & OSCAR WYATT OF COASTAL CORP) "Richard [Branson] met Saddam briefly in 1990 when he flew out to Baghdad with Sir Edward Heath to bring home 43 injured and sick hostages before the first conflict. "He was convinced Bush [* My note: Pop or son, which one?] would go to war in Iraq but he was always sceptical about the weapons of mass destruction. He was saddened when the plan was overtaken by events" ------- "BRANSON: MY PLOT TO STOP IRAQ WAR (Nelson Mandela Rescue Mission)," by Richard Smith, Daily Mirror (U.K.), 12 18 2004
***
He [former ambassador Joe Wilson?] mentions [ Sir Edward ] Heath's visit [accompanied by Virgin Airlines' Richard Branson] on p. 145 of his book, though he gives the impression he and the embassy disapproved of Heath's action. Incidentally in the same passage he lists American visitors, including Ramsey Clark and John Connally; he doesn't mention it, but Connally went there with Oscar Wyatt of Coastal Corp. (there's a bit on this in Chapter 2 of the final Volcker Report).--------------- Posted by Fedora to piasa , On News/Activism 11/04/2005 11:42:42 PM PST · 204 of 204 [See thread "Is this the "French Connection" we were looking for?"]
And :
Enron chose the CCE offer last week [early Sept 2004] in a closed-door auction, rejecting a slightly smaller offer from NuCoastal LLC, a company run by Texas billionaire and Coastal Corp. founder Oscar Wyatt Jr. The deal is expected to close in December.[2004]--------- "Sale of Enron assets OK'd : Bankruptcy judge approves plan for three pipelines ," By Kristen Hays, Associated Press, September 11, 2004, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_3174223,00.html
And:
JANUARY 30, 1996 : (FORBES ARTICLE ON COASTAL CORP.'S OSCAR WYATT, "SADDAM'S PAL OSCAR [WYATT]" IS PUBLISHED) Toni Mack, "Saddam’s pal Oscar." Forbes, available online at http://www.forbes.com:80/forbes/123096/5815072a.htm (January 30, 1996). This article in Forbes magazine reflects on the seedy side of Oscar Wyatt and depicts him as an abrasive street fighter and a liability to Coastal Corp. It traces Oscar Wyatt’s dealings with Libya and Iraq and the most inopportune times. It goes further to suggest that Coastal Corp. should split up into natural gas/electric power operations and refinery operations to increase the companies net worth and perhaps shake Wyatt out of the helm making it easier for Coastal to find partners willing to work with them.
He's been around a while :
1960 : (OSCAR WYATT WORKS FOR THE KENNEDY/JOHNSON CAMPAIGN -- See ELECTION IRREGULARITIES) To: dandelion Good stuff you're finding there. I found a little confirming my suspicion of an LBJ link. Wyatt worked for the JFK-LBJ campaign in 1960. According to an interview with Wyatt recorded in Seymour Hersh's book The Dark Side of Camelot, p. 152, on election night he was telephoned by LBJ crony Clifton Carter who told him, "You've got to get one hundred thousand dollars to Mississippi tonight" in order to make sure JFK and LBJ won Mississippi in case they lost Illinois. However the Daley machine in Illinois carried the vote there before the payments were issued, so Wyatt ended up not having to pay the money, he says. 205 posted on 10/10/2004 2:57:35 PM PDT by Fedora
In a Story today titled : Report: U. S. firmsbought oil from Iraq. Sub titled: Houstonian among those who profited under the U.N. program . We find the name OSCAR WYATT. Others named were Samir Vincent and Shakir AlKhafaji. Plus AlKhafaji is a dononr to the Arab American PAC that has announced support for skerry. 256 posted on 10/11/2004 4:06:44 AM PDT by marty60
Also
2003 : (DELTA SERVICES IS EXPOSED AS A RECIPIENT OF IRAQI OIL VOUCHERS THROUGH THE HEAD OF THE PLF ABU ABBAS ---- See OIL FOR FOOD SCANDALS, MOHAMMED ALAMOUDI, ROCK CREEK CORP, JOE WILSON) [Joe] Wilson ran his company out of the offices of an investment company called Rock Creek Corporation. Rock Creek was controlled by Mohammed Alamoudi, whom Wilson had met in 1997 at a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group. Alamoudi was a member of the Saudi-Ethiopian Alamoudi dynasty, which was heavily invested in the segments of the African economy Wilson was seeking to penetrate. The Alamoudi-affiliated company Delta Services--a Swiss subsidiary of the Saudi company Delta Oil--handled Iraqi oil export contracts in 2000 and 2001 and was revealed in 2003 as a recipient of Iraqi Oil-for-Food vouchers channeled through Abu Abbas, a Palestinian terrorist with Iraqi connections. .... 13 posted on 10/25/2004 1:18:53 PM PDT by BushisTheMan
******
Some clarification of [Joe] Wilson’s “murky” affiliation with Rock Creek Corporation has been offered at greater length elsewhere, but it will suit present purposes to highlight how Rock Creek’s interests coincided with Wilson’s African investment interests. Rock Creek was controlled by Mohammed Alamoudi, whom Wilson had met in 1997 through a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group, a Westar Energy affiliate which managed Alamoudi’s interests in Washington and like Wilson was involved with the Corporate Council on Africa. Alamoudi was a member of the Saudi-Ethiopian Alamoudi dynasty, which was heavily invested in the segments of the African economy Wilson was seeking to penetrate. The Alamoudi oil empire, centered around the Saudi-based company Delta Oil, included African ventures such as Arab-African Petroleum Company (ARAPCO), created in 2002 to buy oil concessions in Africa and develop them with foreign partners.
Alamoudi investments in African telecommunications included a Pan-African telecommunications project launched in 2001 by Pan African Communications Network (PACONET) with financing from a fund chaired by former South African President Nelson Mandela and cofinanced by the International Finance Corporation (IFG), the American International Group (AIG, a group including the Houston-based company El Paso Energy Corporation), and the African Development Bank (ADB). -------From Fedora (clipped from the draft of my article)| 11/05/2005 11:44:05 PM PST
So yes, there are people digging.
* Paul Volker : FoxNews tonight reported that no less a personage than Paul Volker, former Federal Reserve chief, who heads the entire investigation of the U.N. for the U.N., has major league ties to TotalFinaELF, the French oil company which handled the illegal oil transfers, and Bank Paribas, the French bank which laundered billions of Saddam dollars. Paging Senator Coleman!3 posted on 02/01/2005 8:18:31 PM PST by montag813
* Paul Volker : FoxNews tonight reported that no less a personage than Paul Volker, former Federal Reserve chief, who heads the entire investigation of the U.N. for the U.N., has major league ties to TotalFinaELF, the French oil company which handled the illegal oil transfers, and Bank Paribas, the French bank which laundered billions of Saddam dollars. Paging Senator Coleman!3 posted on 02/01/2005 8:18:31 PM PST by montag813
----------------------------------------------
Some other folks have been digging:
.... Bear in mind that the focus of this story started with TotalFinaElf who had options to develop the massive Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields in southern Iraq. I followed the money back to Canada to Power Corporation who has deep connections at highest levels of the UN and then on to China through Mr. Li Ka-Shing, the worlds 19th richest man. France is still a major player in its attempts to harm the US and continues to position itself as a world leader in a new era, one without the USA as a superpower. .....
Power Corporation holds the controlling stock of TOTAL otherwise known as TotalFinaElf. I’m providing a Timeline of the more significant events of the company to provide some background. Power Corp’s founding father, Paul Desmarais, is a major shareholder and director of TotalFinaElf, the biggest oil corporation in France, which has held tens of billions of dollars in contracts with the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein. Both Prime Minister Paul Martin and his mentor Maurice Strong, senior advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, each have worked for Power Corp. Martin’s immediate predecessor is former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, whose daughter, France is married to Andre Desmarais, Paul Desmarais Sr., son. .......
.....Power Corp., through its ties to the New York branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas, or BNP Paribas is also linked to the UN oil-for-food scandal. BNP Paribas was the sole bank for administering the $64 billion oil-for-food program and did not have adequate checks on whether money was being funneled to terrorists, a House International Relations Committee probe found in November 2004. Committee investigators have uncovered evidence that BNP Paribas made payments without proof that goods were delivered and sanctioned payments to third parties not identified as authorized recipients......
TotalFinaElf is now working with the Iranians. They are operating under contracts to help develop the South Pars gas field. They are the Iranian portions of what is probably the largest gas field in the world. The other part of the field, in Qatari waters, is known as North Field. With the South Pars project, TotalFinaElf has become the foremost oil company in partnership with Iran and has bolstered its position in the Middle East, where the Group has been active for some 75 years. -------Expanding the French Connection Self ^ | Friday, November 04, 2005 | Paperjam
------------------------------
[snip]...In 1987 Galloway became MP for Glasgow Hillhead, beating the late Roy Jenkins for the seat. He had separated from his wife after admissions of infidelity and subsequently met and married Amineh Abu Zayyad, a Palestinian scientist....Galloway’s next business venture involved a publishing company, Asian Voice, that he co-founded in 1996. It emerged last week that the firm’s auditor Morley & Scott later discovered that it could not properly account for £49,842 in Asian Voice spending. Galloway was a director during the period under scrutiny. Staff at East, the company’s newspaper, recalled last week how Galloway relished the role of media baron. He would draw up outside the newspaper offices in his Mercedes with a thick Cuban cigar clamped between his teeth. He once admitted to having become a “Bollinger Bolshevik”. It was later alleged that Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister who had previously hosted Galloway in Islamabad, had tried to use East as a mouthpiece and had channelled £135,000 through the company. Galloway denied improperly accepting any Bhutto cash or breaching parliamentary rules. ......After resigning from Asian Voice, the Jerusalem Cigarette Company and the Palestine Liberation Organisation were among the groups that paid for his trips abroad. Then the Mariam Appeal, founded in early 1998, provided Galloway with a new source of funding for his overseas visits. The declared aim of the appeal was to raise funds to treat Mariam Hamza, a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia. ......-----TimesOnline UKhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-525-659858-525,00.html
Gallowsway? If that happened, he really WOULD be suspended!
This is where Hitchens shines an he should stay away from religion and all would be find!
Hitchens your arms are too short to box with God
Who here in the US was getting kickbacks too...
"In the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq?"
Eid Mubarak to you, Bro Mohammed and all the strugglers of the democratic Saudi opposition.So, who is Dr Saad Al-Fagih ?I had a visit today from the PR people - John and Patricia. It seems they have some ambitious plans for the future. I just wanted you to know that their plans are theirs alone.
I should prefer to deal directly with you; either on my own proposals or any others you have.
I hope you all enjoy the feast; and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Allah Makh.
N.B. + new EDM 1284.
11 May 1995
* US Embassy Bombings in E Africa : 1996 : () The [bin Laden sat phone] 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. [MIRA] This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda. ------"Bin Laden called UK 260 times," by Nick Fielding and Dipesh Gadhery, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 03/24/2002
... 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
Nice to see some folks are trying...but the folks you list seem to be trying to find only Democrats and are not focused on “dirty” oil money resulting from the oil for food scandal. After all JFK and LBJ were long dead before it began.
fyi, report link.
British Parliament recommends suspension for GALLOWAY FoR MISCONDUCT in OIL-FOR-FOOD program
US Senate ^ | 7/17/07 | Norm Coleman
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1867311/posts
The report is at the top of the list.
Conduct of Mr George Galloway
The House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmstnprv.htm
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