How I found the papers in a looted foreign ministry office (including Galloway's purported payoff)

Telegraph ^ | April 22, 2003 | David Blair

[hotpotato]

How I found the papers in a looted foreign ministry office
By David Blair in Baghdad
(Filed: 22/04/2003)

Standing on a heap of grubby box files piled on the floor in the office of Iraq's foreign minister, I dropped to my knees and started rummaging through a secret archive of correspondence.

Documents stamped "Confidential and Personal" emerged from overflowing pale blue folders, all carrying the Iraqi eagle, the symbol of the state.

Letters signed by famous names in Iraqi politics such as Tariq Aziz, once deputy prime minister, and Naji Sabri, the former foreign minister, were suddenly cascading on to the floor.

As looters scurried through the corridors of the foreign ministry, hammering on one of the few remaining light fittings, I set to work with my Iraqi translator. We reached down into the pile of folders and dragged them out, one by one.

Some carried ambiguous Arabic labels translating as "political records". Others had long ago lost their labels. Some were blackened and torn. All were covered with a thick coat of ash and soot.

Within minutes, both of us had sweaty black sleeves. Working only by the light of one small window, we took to sinking shafts in piles of folders, extracting one heavy, brown object at a time.

The air was thick with choking clouds of dust and the looters were hammering and shouting in the rooms and corridors around us. Then my translator happened upon an orange box file with the Arabic label "Britain". Its interior was lined with tigerskin wallpaper.

Four blue folders, each stamped with the Iraqi eagle, lay inside. Opening the first, I happened upon George Galloway's letter nominating Fawaz Zureikat as his representative in Baghdad. Another folder contained a letter from Sir Edward Heath thanking the Iraqi representative in London for attending a luncheon in Salisbury.

Two more box files were labelled "Britain". Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France". Each appeared to contain all the appropriate documents that had crossed the desk of an Iraqi foreign minister.

They were piled inside a tiny room ajoining the foreign minister's office on the first floor. Nearby was a large room that must once have been the ministry's main archive. The metal frames of row upon row of folders still survive.

Everything else has been burnt to a cinder and the paper contents of the folders have been reduced to white ash.

Why the contents of the room with the box files survived is a mystery. Its walls are blackened by fire, yet most of the folders are intact. The looters who ransacked the ministry clearly had no interest in them. They were perhaps torn down from their shelves because the pillagers were searching for hidden safes on the walls behind.

Like every government building in Baghdad, the foreign ministry has been pillaged to destruction. It also suffered an American cruise missile strike in the second week of the war.

Almost every room has been stripped bare and bands of looters still roam its corridors. Documents are strewn across the floor of every storey. Here, blowing in the wind are the crucial documents of a regime that was once among the most secretive in the world.

[hotpotato]

Two more box files were labelled "Britain". Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France". Each appeared to contain all the appropriate documents that had crossed the desk of an Iraqi foreign minister.

hmmm.... should get interesting

Galloway being carried during a demonstration

Photo found here "Galloway Issues Denial"

[Big Bad Bob]

The left better begin digging it's grave, because it's gonna be lying in it before too long. This is going to bring down countless governments. If you are a socialist/red/commie/pacifist, oh dear!

[tictoc]

Ping to you.

I hope Galloway's finances will soon be scrutinized by UK authorities.

A parallel exists to Germany's Juergen Moellemann, a (formerly) powerful politician drummed out of his party (FDP, economic liberals) for an anti-Israel flyer that he distributed to millions of households just before the German election last year.

Last time I checked, he had not accounted for the source of the millions of Euros it cost to produce and mail the leaflet. There was strong suspicion that Arab money financed the leaflet.

He was drummed out of the party by the leadership, and then the issue disappeared from the radar screen of German media.

[hotpotato]

I can't wait 'til they find a folder marked "Ritter, exUSA"

[hellinahandcart]

Two more box files were labelled "Britain". Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France".

I can't stop smiling.

[xtargeter]

Do we know for sure that he got the money, or did the Iraqi official make up the story and take the money himself? I don't know, but we need to make sure. It is too easy to smear someone, even if they deserve it.

[hotpotato]

Did you read how the information was found? It was found in files that could have easily been burned along with the rest of the files by the reporter who was snooping around. No telling what we will never know because so many files *were* burned. I'm sure there will be an investigation. This discovery demands it. Also, I really find it hard to believe that someone reporting directly to Saddam is going to double cross him.

[backhoe]

What we have so far:

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897689/posts

THE TIMES: Galloway denies receiving £370,000 Iraq oil payments
The Times (UK) ^ | 4/22/03 | Melissa Kite
...here's links to the original Telegraph story and editorial posted by MadIvan, the documents on the Telegraph site, and the Sun and Independent takes posted by Pokey78.

Here is the account of how the reporter came upon these documents:

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/22/ngall122.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/22/ixnewstop.html

I'm afraid that the establishment media will simply stonewall this to death, despite the direct revelation having been made by one of its most loyal members, the Daily Telegraph. The antiwar group ANSWER has been directly financed by the Iraqi regime since its formation, in the form of "legal fees" paid by Baghdad to ANSWER's leading spokesman and organizer, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897567/posts

Galloway was in Saddam's pay, say secret Iraqi documents (PACIFISTS ON SADDAM PAYROLL)
The Daily Telegraph ^ | April 22, 2003 | David Blair
George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad.

The documents, complete with scans of the letters.

How David Blair found the documents

While children are in the dungeon, this piece of dirt cries, "NO WAR".

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897639/posts

Paid to be a traitor (Galloway)
The Sun (U.K.) ^ | 04/22/03 | Trevor Kavanaugh

The so-called Honourable Member for Glasgow Kelvin emerged last night as the paid mouthpiece for one of the most despicable regimes of torture and mass murder in modern times.

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/881636/posts

TRAITOR (Meet George Galloway, MP for Bagdad Central)
The Sun ^ | Apri 1, 2003 | The Sun

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897625/posts

Galloway denies he was on Saddam's payroll after 'discovery' of secret memo
The Independent (U.K.) ^ | 04/22/03 | Chris Bunting

e.Peak (21/1/2002) news: politics: British MP speaks out on ...
... to illegally provide medicine for children in Iraq. Galloway resides
in the UK with his Palestinian wife...

Here's a brief backgrounder on Galloway: Bush and Blair: Wolves

[section9]

I think that a lot of records connecting the Iraqi government to the left wing "Peace" movement are going to surface over the next several weeks.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Miss Marple]

I am glad to see an explanation of how these papers were found. Thanks for the ping!

Interesting about the German politician. I would like to know what was in the file marked "United States."

[skinkinthegrass]

and this just in: "Former U.S. President William Jefferson Blight Clinton and current U.S. Sen. Mrs. William Jefferson Blight Clinton and the Excut. Committee of the DNC were seen shredding and burning boxes of photos and records..."

[WayneM]

Let the fun begin!!!

[FairOpinion]

"Two more box files were labelled "Britain". Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France". Each appeared to contain all the appropriate documents that had crossed the desk of an Iraqi foreign minister. "

---

What did he do with the boxes labeled US & France?

I surely would like to know what is in those!

[Cacique]

ping

[wrbones]

Does anyone have any solid info on ANSWER and NION's links to Saddam and the WWP, et al? Where all their money's coming from?

I keep runnin across hints, but haven't found anything solid yet.

I want to keep hammering on a couple of liberal and left wing websites I vist...not that they believe anything they don't want to, but I feel better when I beat on them with facts......

[MadIvan]

At the very least, Blair said on ITN News last night - he has the box marked France.

Oh my. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[mewzilla]

Who's got the box marked U.S.?

[MadIvan]

I doubt he left that behind. He only said he's got France. I suspect we're going to get more bombshells in the coming days. The Telegraph has reporters looking in every nook and cranny of Baghdad.

Regards, Ivan

[Moby Grape]

I am VERY concerned that the coalition forces are not protecting all these documents, or even collecting them...instead any reporter (or any Baath official) can just walk in and get them....the US has made some mistakes.

[mewzilla]

I don't think he would have left it behind, either. I was just wondering if he still had custody. Possession is nine tenths of the law as we say over here, and depending on what Blair has found in those boxes, I could see a lot of people trying to get them back.