This is priceless!
Posted on 04/24/2003 8:10:35 PM PDT by Shermy
IT was a white Christmas in Baghdad. At the home of Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister and a Roman Catholic, a high-powered group met for a celebration dinner.
Tucking into turkey with all the trimmings was Aziz, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, or "comical Ali", who was information minister during the recent Gulf war, Nuji Sabri Al-Hadithi, the foreign minister, and Hamid Yusuf Hammiadi, the culture minister, as well as 15 to 20 other officials.
Sitting alongside this who's who of Ba'ath party hierarchy was George Galloway, the MP for Glasgow Kelvin.
Mr Galloway says he is not sure whether this meeting took place in 1999 or another year. However, Iraqi state television gave an account of Mr Galloway meeting Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, a key figure in Saddam Hussein's regime, on December 27, 1999.
This Christmas visit to Baghdad is at the centre of the allegations against Mr Galloway made in the Daily Telegraph. Ibrahim is allegedly the author of one of the three memorandums published by the paper.
One memorandum, apparently from the head of Iraqi intelligence, claimed that on December 26, 1999, Mr Galloway had met an intelligence officer and asked for more money from the oil-for-food programme. Mr Galloway has denied knowingly meeting any intelligence officer, as well as the allegation that he received any money.
Yesterday, Mr Galloway, speaking from his holiday home in the Algarve, described his Christmas trip to Baghdad.
He said: "As you know, Mr Aziz and his family are Roman Catholics. Christmas is for them just as it is for us. It was cold, it was snowing. A little girl sang and some children performed a nativity play. The archbishop shook everyone's hand on the way out and then we went home for lunch and many hours of intensive conversation on the crisis and how we could resolve it and stop this decade of conflict."
He described the service as a "very jolly occasion". Mr Galloway's "home" for the day was the residence of Mr Aziz.
"It was a busy day. We went to the Christmas Mass at the cathedral and then we had lunch and there was a reception in the evening," he said.
Mr Galloway said he was later treated to a traditional roast turkey lunch for about 15 people, including Mr Aziz's children and grandchildren.
"Later in the evening I met with other senior leaders in the Iraqi government. There were 25 to 30 people. I didn't leave the house all day."
Mr Galloway said no gifts were exchanged and described the participants in the evening meeting: "Various ministers, there was the famous 'comical Ali', Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the information minister, Nuji Sabri Al-Hadithi, the foreign minister, and Hamid Yusuf Hammiadi, the culture minister. Many ministers and ambassadors and so on."
Mr Galloway argued that his presence at the event showed that claims that he met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Baghdad 24 hours later, on Boxing Day in 1999, were false.
Mr Galloway added: "Having spent all of Christmas Day with the very top political leaders in Iraq, why on earth the next day would I want to have a meeting with a junior intelligence officer to discuss issues as alleged in that so-called document?
"It just doesn't bear any logical examination. Why would I raise these matters with a junior intelligence official who then has to write a memo to his superior, who then has to write another memo to the leadership, when I had spent the previous day in a private house with the second most important man in the country and then later in the evening with a collection of other very important members of the country?"
Mr Galloway yesterday said he had not met Ibrahim during this visit.
He said he had only met Ibrahim once "for 10 minutes" in the autumn of 1999, when he arrived in Baghdad with the Big Ben bus. He said he had not had any further meetings or telephone conversations with Ibrahim.
According to a transcript of Iraqi state television taken by the BBC monitoring unit, Ibrahim received Mr Galloway on December 27. The back bencher is described in glowing terms as an ambassador for peace.
The transcript quotes Ibrahim as telling Mr Galloway that in 1970 an elderly British lady had written to him offering to donate her entire library to the Iraqi people "in preparation for confronting Israel".
Ibrahim is said to have told Mr Galloway: "She emphasised in her letter that the Zionists inflicted more harm upon the British people than upon the Arab nation by spreading corruption and immorality."
Mr Galloway is reported to have "expressed pleasure for visiting Iraq and conveyed greetings of the western peoples and the good peoples of the world, particularly in Britain, and their solidarity with the people of Iraq".
-April 25th
This is priceless!
GALLOWAY/DNC/LEFTY MEDIOT LIST!
"It just doesn't bear any logical examination. Why would I raise these matters with a junior intelligence official who then has to write a memo to his superior, who then has to write another memo to the leadership, when I had spent the previous day in a private house with the second most important man in the country and then later in the evening with a collection of other very important members of the country?"
I don't think you make a request for secret funding at a public dinner attended by the press.
Plausible deniability.
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