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

[Chuckster]

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

Indeed!

[BOBTHENAILER]

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

I agree, and more than one good book will come from this as well.

[EllaMinnow]

On Galloway ping list, please.

[cyncooper]

On or off Galloway ping list.

ON, please.

[Grampa Dave]

I don't think that we are even in the first chapter yet. We are just finish the teaser of the cover of the book.

Thanks for this recommendation: "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!"

It is on my list of books to pick up at the library.

[Grampa Dave]

What a great suggestion! This would be one reality tv program that I would watch!

"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!!"

[BOBTHENAILER]

His fellow legislators now refer to him as "the member for Baghdad Central" and ridicule him for his expressions of admiration for Saddam

The quote of the day.

McDermott, Bonior....you guys getting this fed to you by your DU bootlickers?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The links above work but I'll pull in the documents.

Changed my mind on that.

Go to this thread and find documents indexed by keywords:

Galloway: For a Flamboyant Laborite, Iraq Looks to Be His Epitaph

Scroll down to post #9 and post #14.

[Grampa Dave]

Don't forget my communist/pro Islamofacist/Pro Castro Congressit, Mike Thompson from N. Kalifornicator!

He was the third rat on that trip. We won't forget him.

[stripes1776]

Doesn't Galloway's involvement all depend on what the meaning of is is?

[BOBTHENAILER]

Don't forget my communist/pro Islamofacist/Pro Castro Congressit, Mike Thompson from N. Kalifornicator!

Thanks for the info. I'm an equal opportunity traitor exposer and I will do my best to NEVER leave out a deserving scum.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

Come on Tim Blair, I am begging to know what was in...Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France".

Don't leave us hanging like we were George Galloway's body or something.

[mabelkitty]

Not only that, maybe now we will get an explanation for that $1 Billion in American.

[mabelkitty]

This will destroy the socialist Labour party. Boo hee.

How much did Dan Rather get?
How much did John Conyers get?
How much did Ramsey Clark get?
How much did the DNC get?
How much did the Clintons get?

[mabelkitty]

Funny you should ask.

They deliberately left off the American Intelligent Minister of Iraq on the playing cards. They didn't want to draw attention to him.

They caught him this week, and he has all the info on payments, active spys, etc. all on our great American shores.

I thought that was the reason Bill and Hill went to the Dominican Republic this week.

[mabelkitty]

Isn't there a connection somewhere between Bonier and that Canadian/Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm?

Carl Levin?

I also recall an FBI raid at a Democratic party office in the same area.

Or am I mixing those two up?

[mabelkitty]

Talk about your Weapons of Career Destruction!!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Come on Tim Blair, I am begging to know what was in...Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France".

Me too!

[BOBTHENAILER]

Talk about your Weapons of Career Destruction!!

RPFLMAO.

These "WCD's" will prove that old quote, "The pen is mightier than the sword". Or maybe I should say, the "files are mightier than voting booth"?

[Miss Marple]

Yowsers! I am gone doing some much-needed housework, and you have listed a bunch of interesting commections! I wondered about that intelligence guy myself.

Also, there were two separate discoveries of documents today shown on Fox. One was miltary intelligence documents hidden in a house, and another was foreign pasports and other documents in a basement of a building.

I do remember some raids in Michigan, but I can't say for sure if it was democrat offices or just businesses. I am flagging deport and kcvl, two people who are good at sleuthing things like that!

deport and kcvl, do you know anything about the connections between Granholm and raids on offices in Michigan?