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

[Dolphy]

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.

There have been questions regarding Granholm's fundraising being tied to political favors in the Detroit area. That is being investigated. Bonior ran against Granholm in the Democrat primary after redistricting had him decide that he wouldn't run to try to keep his seat in the House. I don't know how Levin fits in, outside of regularly being caught in out and out lies and misrepresentations of issues involving Iraq.

[caisson71]

I have the impression that the dunderheads at the liberal media cannot ignore the decline in their ratings forever and you may be correct. If McDermott and "Osama Mama" Murry are exposed and eliminated from the public forum, all the better. Call me a doubting Thomas.

[RippleFire]

bump

[cyncooper]

I have the impression that the dunderheads at the liberal media cannot ignore the decline in their ratings forever and you may be correct.

If there is a trial for treason, and I think there will be, it will be big news.

[cyncooper]

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

I posted that very thought several times yesterday, too.

From the Christian Science Monitor article:

"The Iraqi general, who is familiar with financial dealings of Hussein's inner circle, said that checks of several million dollars could have easily been cashed in a bank on the ground floor of one of the President's most important palaces in Baghdad."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/899717/posts

[EllaMinnow]

They're doing a report on Galloway on FOX right now. It's the first television news report I've seen on Galloway - and they threw in Scott Ritter at the end.

[cyncooper]

Fox just did a thorough report on this, relying heavily on the Monitor report, but also included and referred to the original Telegraph articles.

Clips of Galloway in the House of Commons denouncing Bush and Blair.

Read, with words on the screen, the words in the documents saying why he was getting paid.

[cyncooper]

GMTA!

[AnAmericanMother]

"Lives of great men all remind us,
As we o'er their pages turn,
That we too may leave behind us
Letters which we ought to burn."

[cyncooper]

Forgot to add to the "first on tv"...Brit referenced it yesterday in his grapevine segment, which obviously meant not in depth, and I think it was before the Monitor article hit, providing more credibility (for the wary journalist) to go with the story, even if just to report what is being reported.

[EllaMinnow]

I hope another network picks up on it soon. It should be a huge story, much more important than the usual pap they try to spoonfeed the masses.

[mewzilla]

There's another thread on FR about the Christian Science Monitor's 10 million dollar claim. Click here. Wonder when George plans to come back from Portugal...

[sheikdetailfeather]

Fox News just showed a clip of Scott Ritter saying whether Galloway took money or not the American people need to hold their govt. accountable for 1.5 million debts in Iraq. Fox said Ritter has written an editorial in support of Galloway.

[steve-b]

How much did the Clintons get?

LOL -- live by the Purple File, die by the Purple File....

[sheikdetailfeather]

Rush said something today to the effect "When are we going to nab Bill Clinton?" when he was talking about the deck of cards.

[kcvl]

Key figure in Galloway affair was held by secret service for 30 days

EXCLUSIVE
CAMERON SIMPSON, IAIN WILSON and WILLIAM TINNING

THE businessman who acted as George Galloway's intermediary in Baghdad was arrested as the war began and held incommunicado for 30 days by Jordanian intelligence officers, it emerged yesterday.

The arrest of Fawaz Zureikat followed a raid on his offices in Amman by Dairat al Muk-habarat, the Jordanian secret service, which seized documents, accounts, and computer disks relating to his businesses and political activities.

Mr Zureikat, a Jordanian, was released shortly before a confidential memorandum was unearthed in Baghdad's looted foreign ministry. It alleges that Mr Galloway had received £375,000 a year in pay-offs from the Iraqi government.

The memorandum, sent to Saddam Hussein by his head of intelligence, was found by a Daily Telegraph reporter. The paper claims it showed Mr Galloway had asked a secret agent for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil-for-food programme.

The Telegraph reported that the memo said the MP entered into partnership with Fawaz Zureikat, selling oil on the international market. It suggested that while campaigning for the Mariam Appeal, his anti-war organisation, Mr Galloway was conducting a relationship with Iraqi intelligence behind the scenes.

Mr Galloway, 48, said yesterday he had been the victim of "black propaganda" and "intelligence hocus pocus", adding that the Telegraph was "in big trouble". A statement from his solicitors, Davenport Lyons, said Mr Galloway had "decided to take whatever legal action as may be necessary".

Speaking from Jordan, Mr Zureikat said the Telegraph memo was "fabricated", but Charles Moore, the paper's editor, said they stood fully behind their story and their reporter.

Mr Galloway last night said he was prepared to throw open the Mariam campaign's ac-counts for the first time. He acknowledged Mr Zureikat was "one of the three biggest benefactors", along with the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and said Mr Zureikat now controlled the organisation.

The Glasgow Kelvin MP said he had never, to his knowledge, met an Iraqi intelligence agent. He admitted on BBC2's Newsnight that he could have been in Baghdad with Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, for Christmas 1999, just over a week before the memo is dated. The MP claimed he could not remember if he had visited then or the following December.

"I'm prepared for argument's sake to concede I was in Baghdad. I spent a Christmas day either in '99 or 2000 with Tariq Aziz, which makes the point I have just made. If I were in a frame of mind to discuss business with the regime in Iraq, I would have done it on Christmas Day with Tariq Aziz rather than with a junior intelligence officer on Boxing Day."

Mr Galloway said he was not registered as involved in the oil-for-food programme at the UN in New York, but Mr Zureikat probably was. "I imagine so, he's quite a considerable player with Iraq," Mr Galloway said.

"I'm trying to reach him, to ask him if he's ever been involved in oil deals, because I don't know the details of that. But I certainly know that he's been a supplier of very many things to very many ministries in Iraq, in the old regime, through the oil-for-food programme from the agriculture ministry to the trade ministry and many others."

Mr Galloway acknowledged he wrote a "To whom it may concern letter" on Commons-headed notepaper certifying Mr Zureikat was his representative in Baghdad. He said it was a "remarkable coincidence" a copy had turned up in the same file as a letter said to be from the head of Iraqi intelligence.

Ian McCartney, Labour party chairman, said officials would investigate the new claims. "The allegations are extremely serious ... The general secretary will consider all these issues arising from this and will come forward with recommendations to the NEC."

Mr Galloway said he would stand as an independent candidate, in Glasgow Central, if he were not selected to stand as a potential Labour MP after his Glasgow Kelvin seat disappears due to boundary changes at the next election.

April 23rd

[cyncooper]

"Fox News just showed a clip of Scott Ritter saying whether Galloway took money or not the American people need to hold their govt. accountable for 1.5 million debts in Iraq."

Ah, the old change the subject tactic.

"Fox said Ritter has written an editorial in support of Galloway."

Indeed, he did:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/899796/posts

[kcvl]

November 23, 2002

The warrant authorizing searches related to Ed McNamara gave FBI agents authority to seize records relating to:

http://www.freep.com/news/metro/orgs23_20021123.htm

[BOBTHENAILER]

That we too may leave behind us Letters which we ought to burn."

I've got many I'd like to burn, if that's what you mean. But mine don't involve torture, murder, death and destruction.

I can live with mine, even exposed, can they, under the judgement of GOD?

[sheikdetailfeather]

Thanks for the link, cyn. What a creep.