Posted on 06/20/2003 4:54:03 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
An American newspaper apologised yesterday to the suspended Labour MP George Galloway for falsely alleging that he received more than £6 million from Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Christian Science Monitor, based in Boston, said documents it was passed by an Iraqi general in Baghdad two months ago - which contained the claims of payments to Mr Galloway - were "almost certainly" forgeries.
"At the time we published these documents we felt they were newsworthy and credible, although we did explicitly state in our article that we could not guarantee their authenticity," said Paul Van Slambrouck, the editor.
"It is important to set the record straight: we are convinced the documents are bogus. We apologise to Mr Galloway and our readers."
Mr Galloway said he would not accept the apology and would continue legal action against the newspaper.
The Glasgow Kelvin MP has also threatened to sue The Daily Telegraph for libel over separate reports - published before the US newspaper story - that documents found in the Iraqi foreign ministry purported to show that he had received up to £375,000 from Saddam's government.
Interviewed on Sky News he claimed that the Telegraph documents, which were discovered by reporter David Blair, were "fake" and part of a "conspiracy of forgery and fabrication" against him. Mr Galloway said the US newspaper's documents had been "unmasked by experts" as forgeries.
The same experts who concluded that the CSM documents were forged also said the papers found by Blair appeared to be genuine.
The CSM said it employed the expertise of Hassan Mneimneh, head of the Iraq Research and Documentation Project in Washington who has examined tens of thousands of Iraqi government papers.
The CSM added: "After examining copies of two pages of The Daily Telegraph's documents linking Galloway with the Hussein regime, Mneimneh pronounces them consistent, unlike their Monitor counterparts, with authentic Iraqi documents he has seen."
Mr Galloway rejected attempts by The Daily Telegraph to ask him about this issue yesterday and declined to send a copy of his press release. But in a news release issued to the Press Association and other media outlets he rejected the CSM's retraction.
"I don't accept their apology," said Mr Galloway. "Firstly a newspaper of their international standing should have conducted these basic checks on the authenticity of these documents before they published them and not more than two months afterwards.
"This internationally-renowned newspaper published on its front page, in virtually every country in the world, that I took $10 million from Saddam Hussein, based on papers which have proved to be forgeries.
"They did not even speak to me before publishing these allegations. My legal action against them continues. "Second, I want to know who forged these documents. The notion that a superannuated general self-generated a conspiracy like this one is implausible. I am calling on the Prime Minister to investigate how this conspiracy came about.
"As a British subject I have the right to the protection of the British intelligence services from a conspiracy hatched by persons unknown but whose handiwork was conducted in foreign territory co-occupied by Great Britain."
Charles Moore, editor of The Daily Telegraph, said: "The Christian Science Monitor's retraction has no bearing on The Daily Telegraph's story.
"Our story was based on a different set of documents found in a different set of circumstances. They were not supplied or given to us but unearthed by our reporter, David Blair, in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.
"The CSM's documents were produced in the wake of our story by a mysterious figure using a pseudonym. They purported to be torn from official files but there was no evidence to support their authenticity.
"We were offered them but declined to publish them. We note that the experts employed by the CSM pronounced that the documents on which our story was based appeared to be genuine. We have complete confidence in our story, our reporter and the authenticity of our documents."
If I am correct, The Telegraph has only claimed they are in possession of authentic documents. I don't think they have accused Galloway of anything.
yitbos
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