Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/26/2003 4:13:29 PM PDT by MadIvan
When I read the documents in The Daily Telegraph which appear to show the Iraqi Intelligence Services discussing payments to George Galloway, I experienced a strange sense of deja vu. I worked for the KGB in a number of Western countries, ending up in Britain as acting head of the KGB's London station. I had responsibility for a group of British agents, including "agents of influence": men we paid to write articles, give speeches, and make television appearances which supported some specific aspect of Soviet foreign policy. I have no knowledge of Mr Galloway, and don't know whether or not he took money from the Iraqis - but he certainly said and wrote things that must have delighted the Iraqi intelligence service.
He insists that he has never taken any money, and indeed that he has never even knowingly met an Iraqi intelligence officer. All the same, the musings about him in the Iraqi intelligence documents reminded me of the way the KGB talked about its British agents. An agent of influence is not a spy. He is someone who works as a propagandist.
A British MP is entitled to write what he likes: he can visit the countries he chooses to, and to speak to their leaders. Everything can be out in the open - everything, that is, except the acceptance of money from a foreign power. That is what has to be kept secret, and that is what both sides - intelligence service and their agent - are most worried about becoming public knowledge. In my experience, however, that worry never stopped money from being paid or accepted. Some British agents always seemed to want money. We always paid in cash, to ease any worries about discovery.
Concerns about corruption were even easier to soothe. As Richard Gott, the Guardian journalist who "took red gold" said following his exposure, it wasn't corruption: it was just "expenses".
We used to give our "agents of influence" tips on what to say in their articles and speeches. This was very much appreciated, because, for the agents, it was a free research service. It is astonishing how easy it is to flatter the vanity of some people: you furnish them with all the material they need, and sometimes even with whole pages which they just copy out - and they genuinely believe you when you tell them how brilliant, how original, how fascinating the article they have written is. It becomes easy to draw them into a closer relationship: they get addicted to the praise.
I have no idea whether this is what happened to Mr Galloway, but in the KGB, we often used to dangle the prospect of a meeting with senior Soviet officials or KGB bosses such as Yuri Andropov in front of our agents: "It's in recognition of the extraordinary work you have done," we used to say. "The most important people in my country have recognised it!" That worked wonders in inspiring our agents.
I am sure that the Iraqi intelligence service, which took its inspiration from the KGB, would have used the same trick on whatever foreign agents it actually had working for it. I don't know if Mr Galloway was one of them. But he landed a meeting with Saddam Hussein. Of course, that may have happened simply because The Great Leader had come to recognise in Mr Galloway a British politician who had independently come to share all his marvellous ideas.
Is it likely that - as some have claimed - officers in the Iraqi intelligence service could have concocted the scheme of payments in the documents, keeping the whole lot for themselves, and not giving a penny to Mr Galloway? If my experience in the KGB is anything to go by, it is not. Although KGB officers themselves occasionally took a cut of any sum they gave either to an agent or to an organisation, it was never more than 10 or 15 per cent. That was dangerous enough. Any Iraqi intelligence officer who stole all the money for himself would surely risk being fed head first into a shredding machine.
When I was in the KGB, we would have loved to have found a politician like Mr Galloway. Here is a man who, during a war, calls his own leader a "wolf" and tells the soldiers on his own side not to fight. Whether or not he was working for them, the Iraqis will have drastically over-estimated Mr Galloway's importance - just as the KGB would have done. They will have thought that because he is an MP, and a member of the "ruling party", he must have some influence over the centre of power. In fact, of course, he has none. Mr Galloway is a peripheral figure. But if the documents are genuine, then it is a sign of how completely Iraqi intelligence misunderstood British society that they - allegedly - thought it was worth paying him several hundred thousand pounds a year.
Regards, Ivan
It's actually very cheap, much less than the cost of an obsolete tank that got used for target practice by Coalition forces
It becomes really worthwhile if you can buy a bunch of them at this price. It doesn't take many to sway how legislation goes
But only after his kiddies were shot in front of him. It is inconceivable that a Saddamite agent would take such risks.
By the way, Galloway is a bit more important than the author here thinks. True, he has no influence with Blair. But isn't Galloway the number one favorite MP of Britain's hard left? John Malkovich, in his who-I-want-to-shoot remark, didn't just pick Galloway at random.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Q. Is it more likely that the FBI was dispatched last week to Baghdad to look for:
1. looted clay tablets and pottery from the Baghdad Museum, or
2. documentation on American politicians who were on the take like Galloway was, with the "Search for looted historical items" as their cover story, so that the guilty won't have a chance to flee to countries with which we do NOT have extradition treaties?
Scott Ritter is already at the top of the list. But who else? We can start with a list of people who visited Baghdad in the last 12 years. Although I'm not familiar with their politics, we can start with the Democrat congressmen who were there just before the war started.
Then we can walk through the list of celebrities who have visited Iraq, or who have spoken out against the war, ones like Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. People who continued to speak out against the war after the fighting started are prime candidates.
And how about Dianne Feinstein, who wanted us to "wait even longer" to invade Iraq, even as early as the beginning of this year? She's criticized by the left in California for supporting the war, but it was in the least enthusiastic terms possible.
Moreover, there's this condemnation of using tactical nukes in Asia. How's that for tipping our hand?
Actually, it was feet first, so witnesses could hear their screams.
Yep. And it was before any of these disclosures. The other fellow Malkovich mentioned was Robert Fisk, a far left reporter for the Guardian/Observer who once indicated approval after an Arab mob beat him up for being a westerner.
Yea, but the equivalent would have to be a Democratic congressman who:
a. Is a household name
b. Said that the day the USSR died was the sadest of his life
Fortunately, we don't quite have any equivalent traitor.
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