Galloway changes his tune on Iraqi memos

The Telegraph UK ^ | Friday 25 April 2003 | Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Galloway changes his tune on Iraqi memos
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 25/04/2003)

George Galloway revised his view yesterday that the documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad linking him to payments from the regime of Saddam Hussein were forgeries.

But he still maintained that their contents were untrue and libellous.

Earlier this week, Mr Galloway, Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, appeared to suggest that the documents had been fabricated.

But he told Radio 4's Today programme: "I am not saying they are forgeries. I am saying they could be forgeries and that their provenance is extremely suspicious."

In The Guardian yesterday, he was quoted as saying: "Irrespective of the provenance of the documents the material in them is false."

Mr Galloway also told Radio Scotland that he could not rule out the possibility that he had been misrepresented by others who had taken money from Iraq.

"I can't answer for anything that anyone else has done - that anyone else has, as it were, traded on my name," he said. "But of course the possibility exists.

"Personally, the only thing that matters to me in terms of my libel action is these allegations that I myself took sums of money from the government then ruling Iraq are not only untrue but lies on a fantastic scale and ones which are being answered in the libel courts."

While Mr Galloway continues to protest that he did not take money from Saddam as indicated by the documents found in Iraq, his explanation has changed subtly over the past week.

When he was first asked about the initial document produced on Monday he said: "Maybe it's the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture. Maybe The Daily Telegraph forged it."

However, Mr Galloway denied changing his story. In answers to questions posed by The Daily Telegraph yesterday he said: "I never said they were definitely forgeries. They could be forgeries."

Several experts, including a former Iraqi government aide, have since claimed that the documents are genuine and Mr Galloway yesterday was unable or unwilling to say who may have forged them if they were not.

"People can make their own minds up about that. Forgery and deception have been a hallmark of this Iraq affair from the start," he said on the Today programme.

Because he was at his villa in Portugal, he was not in a position to comment directly upon the documents other than to question their provenance. But what mattered most to him was not where the documents came from but that the contents were false.

"This is a lie of fantastic proportions which only the most credulous would believe. I am one of the most scrutinised and observed figures in Britain, and Iraq, one of the most scrutinised, besieged and observed countries in the world. The idea that the Iraqi regime was channelling to me personally hundreds of thousands of pounds is simply absurd.

"The Telegraph has not advanced a scintilla of evidence that I have ever traded in oil or food or received any money from Iraq. All they have done is publish a document which they miraculously came by in a burning, looted, destroyed building which, miraculously when they put their hand in it, came out with my name on it and information relating to me.

"Most people think that that's a set-up."

In this week's Tribune magazine, he said the allegations were a "helpful diversion from the invasion, destruction and occupation of Iraq.

"For the record, I have never personally benefited from my work on Iraq. On the contrary, I have given my political life's blood to my fight for the people of Iraq."

	24 April 2003: This is genuine, says Saddam's ex-aide
	22 April 2003: Letter asking for money 'is a forgery'

Related reports

	Inquiry into Galloway fund
	Gone to press

External links

	Fantastic lies of the Daily Telegraph [25 Apr '03] - Tribune

[lelio]

The idea that the Iraqi regime was channelling to me personally hundreds of thousands of pounds is simply absurd.
Ah, Clinton-speak lives on. Of course you didn't get the money personally it went to your charity, which you happened to get money from. Come on, any dolt can figure that one out.

The Telegraph has not advanced a scintilla of evidence that I have ever traded in oil or food or received any money from Iraq.
Again, see above. Or you could say "I never traded in oil, I traded in the 55 gallon drums which might off been carrying some black liquid."

[jim35]

Speaking of Scott Ritter...

Galloway's a crook - how convenient

These dramatic revelations come just when Britain needs an outspoken voice of dissent more than ever

Scott Ritter
Friday April 25, 2003
The Guardian

I was shocked to read about the allegations, ostensibly based upon documents discovered in Iraq, that George Galloway was somehow compensated financially by the Iraqi government for championing its cause. I was shocked because, if these allegations prove to be true, then the integrity and credibility of a man for whom I have great respect would be dramatically undermined.
But I was also shocked because of the timing of these allegations. Having been on the receiving end of smear campaigns designed to assassinate the character of someone in opposition to the powers that be, I have grown highly suspicious of dramatic revelations conveniently timed to silence a vocal voice of dissent.

The charges made against Galloway are serious and they should be thoroughly investigated. Do these charges have any merit? I will continue to operate under the assumption of innocence until proven guilty. I hope the charges against George Galloway are baseless but, to be honest, I simply don't know.

But I do know a few things about George Galloway and the cause he championed with regards to Iraq. I know that he helped found the Mariam Appeal, a humanitarian organisation established in 1998 initially to raise funds on behalf of an Iraqi girl who suffered from leukaemia and who, because of economic sanctions, was unable to receive adequate medical care. I met Mariam in 1999, when she was a guest of the Bruderhof Society here in the US, a religious movement that eschews individual wealth and promotes a simple, communal life. She was getting treatment for the onset of blindness caused by medical neglect related to her leukaemia treatment.

Mariam is a real person, not some political stunt. Her suffering was genuine. So, too, was the joy of her maternal grandmother, who accompanied Mariam to the US when she realised that while Mariam might be blind, she was going to live, thanks in no small part to the work of people like George Galloway, whose dramatic intervention got Mariam out of Iraq and into the hands of those who could care for her.

I know that Galloway helped set up the British-Iraqi friendship association. I know because he invited me to come to London and speak at the association's inaugural meeting. The message I heard him deliver that night was one of human kindness and compassion. He spoke out against the suffering of the Iraqi people under the effects of a decades-long economic embargo. I heard him decry the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But I also heard him lambast the policies of his own country, and those of the US, which were subjecting the innocent people of Iraq to such suffering.

Establishing the friendship association was a politically incorrect thing to do at the time. Galloway's political opponents could, and did, make political hay from such actions, deriding them as "pro-Saddam". In the months to come, I'm sure many British people will flock to organisations espousing friendship between Britain and Iraq, now that it is the trendy thing to do. Galloway was a friend of the Iraqi people back when they most needed the friendship and understanding of the British people.

I know that Galloway was a leading, and highly vocal, critic of the war with Iraq. He challenged Tony Blair's policies and statements about the justification for the war, namely the allegations made by Britain and the US concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes and its failure to comply with its security council-mandated obligations to disarm. I know because I share Galloway's views about the unsustained nature of the British-American case against Iraq.

He spoke out vociferously against Blair's policies on Iraq, demanding evidence concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction more substantial than the plagiarised dossier and forged documents produced by Whitehall. The case for war, as flimsy as it was in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, has been shown to date to be utterly without merit, as no stockpiles of hidden weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered by the US and British military forces occupying Iraq.

If it turns out that there are no weapons of mass destruction or programmes related to their production and concealment in Iraq, Blair and his government must be held accountable by the British people for actions carried out in their name. If British policy was sustained on the back of a lie, then those who perpetrated that lie must be called upon to explain themselves. Now, more than ever, the British people need a voice of opposition, because it is from the ranks of the opposition that the matter of policing bad policy will be raised.

To allow George Galloway to be silenced now, when his criticisms of British policy over Iraq have been shown to be fundamentally sound, would be a travesty of democracy. Rather than casting him aside, the British people should reconsider his statements in the light of the emerging reality that it is Blair and not Galloway who has been saying things worthy of investigation.

· Scott Ritter was formerly chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq

WSRitter@aol.com

[PianoMan]

Is the Guardian going to bat for this guy?

[lelio]

who is easily sacrificed because he is already unpopular outside his district
Thanks for reminding me that I was re-districted into that loony's area. He'll be re-elected till the cows come home.

[jim35]

The above article from himself, Scott Ritter! BTW, note the e-mail address at the bottom. Feel free to type him a short note. I certainly did!

[Howlin]

"I am not saying they are forgeries."

But isn't that EXACTLY what he said?

How's his lawsuit coming?

[Miss Marple]

All the more reason to hope McDermot's name is in one of those boxes! You will of course get another moron, but hopefully not one who is treasonous!

[Miss Marple]

I would say this article today indicates that after consultation with attorneys, he now knows that if he keeps saying that these documents are forgeries, the reporter can sue HIM!

It gets better and better.

Do you think tariq Aziz will be called as a material witness at Galloway's trial? Hehehe.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

So, what's in the U.S.A. file?

[BOBTHENAILER]

This is better than a Tom Clancy novel each and everyday!

No kidding, and the best part is we're only half way through the first chapter. One of those books that grab you right off and keep you reading til 3-4 am until done.

On the same topic, either of you ever read "The Fist of God" by Frederick Forsythe? Fantastic book about an incredible SAS agent in Iraq during the build up to and during the Gulf War. So full of fact you know he's got inside dope.

[Dog]

I would guess that lawsuit isn't going very well.....:-)

[Howlin]

I'm loving all these documents. More! More!

[Prysson]

Hey Galloway...you hear that swooshing sound? Its your career going right out the window.

[Howlin]

That does seem to be the MO, doesn't it?

[Tallguy]

Can't wait to see Johnnie Cochran in a powdered wig!

[GailA]

MASTER LIST UN Oil for Food scam + galloway

[Miss Marple]

No, I haven't read that. Thank you for the recommendation.

MEANWHILE, Fox has an exclusive with the Army in Baghdad, where they just raided a house full of intelligence papers from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, who had hidden them in the home. Rooms crammed full of documents, including US military hardware information.

And this morning Fox showed the discovery of sacks of documents in a basement. The troops had gone there looking for artifacts from the museum, but instead they found sacks of foreign travel documents, including foreign passports!

I bet we will be getting stories from this stuff for the next 10 years!

[Howlin]

I love your list!

You have done a FABULOUS job of keeping it up!

[Miss Marple]

Fox News should run a weekly series called "Snooping Around Baghdad." They could pull out a chunk of documents at random, trace them, and tell the stories behind them.

Sometimes they would find a person whose passport had been stolen while at a convention, sometimes a terrorist would be arrested, an occasional Congressman confronted, etc.

You would never know from week to week what the story would be. The ultimate reality TV!!