Galloway faces renewed claims over Saddam oil/US Senate

[cal04]

Respect MP denies report from US senators
George Galloway, the newly elected MP for the anti-war Respect party in east London, this morning faces allegations from the US Senate over whether he benefited from the Iraq oil-for-food programme run under Saddam Hussein.

A US Senate committee report published today claims to have uncovered "significant evidence" that the former Labour MP was allocated millions of barrels of oil from the Saddam regime. It bases its conclusions on previously disclosed documents from the Iraqi ministry of oil and interviews with senior officials of the regime, plus unnamed Iraqi sources. George Galloway, the newly elected MP for the anti-war Respect party in east London, this morning faces allegations from the US Senate over whether he benefited from the Iraq oil-for-food programme run under Saddam Hussein.

A US Senate committee report published today claims to have uncovered "significant evidence" that the former Labour MP was allocated millions of barrels of oil from the Saddam regime. It bases its conclusions on previously disclosed documents from the Iraqi ministry of oil and interviews with senior officials of the regime, plus unnamed Iraqi sources.

Mr Galloway last night denied the allegations. He told the Guardian: "This committee has never spoken to me, never written to me and never asked me a single question and did not even acknowledge last year my offer to go and speak to them. It is hardly an investigation. "It is merely the repetition of false accusations that have been made and denied before. Something does not become true because it is repeated by George Bush's Senate majority."

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1482099,00.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Galloway vs. Chalabi in a question of credibility.

I choose to believe neither.

[aneerkoinos]

6. So

with You they have succeeded.

There's been ongoing smear campaign, the usual rethug/fascist modus operandi, against Galloway who is one of the most outspoken critics of the illegal war. The purpose of this campaign is of course to public question the credibility of mr. Galloway, and what he says about Iraq.

Good to see all that effort is not wasted, there are still lot's of people who get affected by Corporate Media/Rethug smear campaigns! :)

[Zhade]

8. aneerkoinos, GT thinks Greg Palast "just makes shit up".

So, there's your credibility factor.

IMHO: don't waste your time.

[geek tragedy]

14. Palast announced that millions of votes had been stolen BEFORE

the 2004 election. Uh huh.

[Zhade]

20. Do you come by that ignorance honestly?

If you knew one thing about Palast's work, you'd know that his reference to stolen votes dealt with the names scrubbed from the Florida voter rolls. Duh.

Your agenda, however, doesn't seem to allow you to understand what he was talking about. Thankfully, plenty of other people actually get it, so your inability to grasp the evidence he put forth to back that up is no real loss.

[geek tragedy]

27. My 'agenda?' Why not just have the cojones to say what you really think?

The man doesn't bother to seek the most basic facts which could disprove his own theories. That's not journalism--that's hackery.

And I was referring to his 11-1-2004 comments that the Republicans were stealing votes in Ohio, New Mexico, Florida, Colorado.

Palast's m.o. is always the same--look for potentially questionable activities that could negatively affect progressive candidates and assume the very worst. Now, some of the stuff he uncovers may very well be bad faith fraud and disenfranchisement. However, I also know that he won't make any effort to sort out the compelling claims from the uncompelling claims. Sorry, but I don't view folks from the "throw as much shit and see what sticks" school of argumentation as reliable sources.

[geek tragedy]

13. Spare me the condescension.

I think Galloway is an anti-democratic pinhead. He was that way long before Bush got elected.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rinsd]

21. This may be the most hypocritical post I've seen on DU

"You have a lot of opinions to throw about (about persons you don't agree with"

I don't agree with geek tragedy but all you did was insult him.

[aneerkoinos]

22. hypo or critical, whatever

But pejorative one-liners about this or that person, without offering anything to back them with, hardly makes room for a discussion, and saying that aloud for explanation for bailing off from a non-discussion that is going nowhere, is hardly an insult, at least where I live.

I could insult if I wanted, and it is also not an insult but an observation that your post didn't add any gravitas, only more gravity to the tediousness of this all... ;)

[geek tragedy]

26. Provide ideas worth discussing, and you'll get a thoughtful response.

Your post didn't deserve an intelligent, thoughtful response. Not worth the effort.

[aneerkoinos]

28. You well never get one

If you don't give it an attempt.

All this is just tedious projecting.

[Henny Penny]

35. Here are some quotes from a more deserving

recipient of this accolade....

"I think Galloway is an anti-democratic pinhead. He was that way long before Bush got elected."

and

"Sorry, but I don't view folks from the "throw as much shit and see what sticks" school of argumentation as reliable sources."


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[geek tragedy]

25. I bow to your superior mode of argumentation:

insults and accusations of being a dupe of the rightwing media.

I can't formulate intelligent responses to gibberish like that.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Henny Penny]

34. Word of advice aneerkoinos...

When you see a post by Geek Tragedy, just scan on down... I know I do ;-)

Blair and Bush are clearly scared shitless by Mr Galloway and have been trying to smear him for years... In fact you can probably gauge just how scared they are by the amount of crap levelled at the guy.

But I really admire him and wish him all the best for the future. I hope he's not persuaded to get in any light aircraft!

[geek tragedy]

36. He was a supporter of the USSR and still mourns its departure.

But, I guess only us silly dupes would consider Stalinists to be anti-democratic.

[aneerkoinos]

38. Sure

And I should just take the word of a "silly dupe" for Galloway's unqualified and uncritical support for USSR, aka Stalinism?

[geek tragedy]

39. There's a site that can help you find the evidence.

It's called "google." You should give it a try.

[aneerkoinos]

41. After you n/t

[geek tragedy]

43. Yawn. The unwillingness of those on the extreme left

to know basics of their heroes is quite sad.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/interviews/story/0,11660,792915,00.html

"Galloway is quick to remind you that he, and his comrades on the left, were among the first to condemn Saddam's human rights record, even if the chief motive was that the country had become a virulently anti-communist puppet of America. Until 1991, Iraq was the only Arab country he'd not visited. "I wouldn't have been allowed in. I was a known opponent of the Iraqi regime because I was with the left, and the communists in Iraq who were shattered and sent into orbit in the late 70s."

He says his political position is no different now than it was then; that while there are so many politicians marching across the ideological spectrum without explanation, he has stayed put. What is that position? "I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

An unreconstructed anti-American Stalinist (not everyone here thinks that's a bad thing, but I do). When Stalin became an enemy of the US, Gorgeous George wasted no time cuddling up to the Baathist regime.

[aneerkoinos]

44. Not my hero

I don't believe in hero or anti-hero cults.

No proof of unqualified and uncritical support for SU, not to mention stalinism, in the observation that With SU around to counter US imperialism, Iraq war would not have happened. Or support for SU in the sense that it's existance helped the social democratic project in the West and held of the neoliberal attack against social equality. These are valid observations which I share with mr. Galloway.

It remains unclear what exactly Galloway means by support for SU, and probably I disagree how big tragedy disappearance of SU was. It has certainly has on one side meant a huge tragedy for the vast majority of Russian people, whose life expectacions with imported neoliberal policies have dropped dramatically. Story has many sides.

So, not a shread of evidence for your accusation that Galloway is anti-democratic and/or stalinist. Only evidence for the old truth that prejudiced black and white mode of thinking makes one stupid.

[geek tragedy]

46. Support is support.

He supported the Stalinist empire. He deeply mourned its departure. He's friends with Tariq Aziz.

No amount of dissembling can change that.

[aneerkoinos]

47. OK

Me: "World is not black and white, because of these and these shades of gray...

Other guy: "Black is black and white is white, because I says so, and no amount of dissembling can prove there's gray.

I accept my defeat: it is not possible to have sensible discussion with you.

[LivingInTheBubble]

48. anti-democratic?

lol, he just got elected in a democratic process... you really need to do some reading before posting.

[aneerkoinos]

49. Umm

The line of "reasoning" seems to go:

1. Galloway says he supported Soviet Union (or certain aspects of).

2. Soviet Union is stalinist,

3. thus anyone who in any sense supported Soviet Union is stalinist

4. stalinism equals anti-democracy

5. thus Galloway is anti-democratic.


As obvious, this "deductive" chain of poor analogies has little to do with facts and nothing to do with logical reasoning.

[Stockholm]

30. where does Chalabi come in?

If anything should it not read Galloway vs. Coleman.

[geek tragedy]

33. I'm guessing that they got at least some of those documents from

Chalabi. Maybe Curveball will make an appearance as well.

[xxqqqzme]

2. "Something does not become

true because it is repeated by George Bush's Senate majority."

Can't argue with that!

[freedom_to_read]

18. in fact...

I'm inclined to say that makes it more likely to be a falsehood.

[IndianaGreen]

3. This is the same US Senate that voted for the criminal invasion of Iraq

They are war criminals, the whole lot of them, and they sure don't have a moral leg to stand on after all the butchery they voted for.

[KoKo]

4. I guess Tony gave a call to Georgie and said "Release the Attack Dogs..

Galloway was elected and I want that damned thorn in my side outta here."

Galloway was already cleared of some charges having to do with "doing business with Saddam" but I guess they just can't let it rest. He must have some damaging info to be attacked by a Prime Minister and a P-Resident.

[cal04]

5. Names named in US Iraq oil report

A US Senate report says two senior politicians from the UK and France were granted potentially lucrative oil allocations by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It says British MP George Galloway and former French minister Charles Pasqua had been given the right to buy oil under the UN's oil-for-food scheme.

Such allocations could be sold on for a commission, although the report offers no evidence either men received money. Both men deny claims that they were involved in such sales. "I have never traded in a barrel of oil," said Mr Galloway, re-elected as an MP last week after campaigning against the Iraq war. "This is a lickspittle Republican committee, acting on the wishes of George W Bush."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4538735.stm

[magellan]

7. LOL -- our Senate can't even investigate itself properly

The subcommittee is chaired by Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, who has made it his mission to bring to book those he considers responsible for the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal.

Coleman ought to start at home. The US knew this was going on all along and chose to turn a blind eye to it. Let the chips fall where they may.

Why on earth is a US Senate subcommittee investigating British officials anyway? Isn't that for the UK to handle??

[Vladimir]

9. Can he sue the US Senate for libel?

and if so, any bets on how big the payoff is gonna be this time?

This shit just gets more hilarious every time. As I read it, all this report is claiming is that some Saddam officials now say they allocated Galloway some oil if he should choose to get some - i.e. Galloway is effectively accussed of guilt by association with potential criminals. "Look at him, 'e's got a moustache!!!" would be more effective...

[geek tragedy]

15. Nope. No chance of a libel verdict. eom

[Vladimir]

16. Glad to see your eye for sarcasm is as acute as ever... n/t

[geek tragedy]

17. No, it's not possible.

Sovereign immunity and what not. Not to mention the fact that the US has much less strict defamation laws than the UK.

[eridani]

10. A blast from the past--

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=460556

George Galloway, the MP expelled from the Labour Party, for his vehement opposition to the Iraq war, has been offered £96,000 in libel damages over claims that he was in the pay of Saddam Hussein.

The Independent has learnt that the sum has been offered by the US-based Christian Science Monitor newspaper, which alleged the MP had received $10m (£5.94m) from the former Iraqi ruler. The newspaper's report was based on documentation discovered in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam which subsequently proved to be forged. Mr Galloway is pursuing a second libel action, against The Daily Telegraph, over claims, also based on documents found in the Iraqi capital, that he had been receiving £375,000 a year from Saddam.


And then--ding ding ding ding, round two to Gorgeous George!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4061165.stm

MP George Galloway has won £150,000 in libel damages from the Daily Telegraph over claims he received money from Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

The Glasgow Kelvin MP had denied ever seeking or receiving money from Saddam Hussein's government, which he said he had long opposed.

[Stockholm]

29. In the same bags of documents

that named Galloway was "proof" that the 9-11 hijackers learned how to fly a plane in Iraq...

They never learn do they?

I think this hearing will backfire big time - strange move really, didn´t they know that Galloway is not intimidated by accusations - he freaking thrive on it?

And it will only end up with people viewing him as another victim of the Bush/Blair-gang smear campaigns.

[emad]

11. Bush "lickspittles" blamed: London Evening Standard

Galloway fury in oil row
By Paul Waugh, Evening Standard
12 May 2005

Anti-war MP George Galloway today blamed George Bush " lickspittles" for fresh claims he was allocated Iraqi oil vouchers worth $500million by Saddam Hussein's regime.

The newly-elected Respect party MP for Bethnal Green and Bow hit out after a US Senate committee published what it called "significant evidence" he had been granted rights to sell the oil between 2000 and 2003.

The Senate Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee cited several new documents and interviews with former Iraqi leaders which it alleged showed Mr Galloway was allocated vouchers for up to 20 million barrels under a United Nations scheme.

The former Labour MP may also have used his Mariam Appeal, a charity set up to help Iraqi victims of leukaemia, to conceal payments connected to his allocations, it added.

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/18574578?source=Evening%20Standard

[bemildred]

12. Let me emphasize that:

Anti-war MP George Galloway today blamed George Bush " lickspittles" for fresh claims he was allocated Iraqi oil vouchers worth $500million by Saddam Hussein's regime.

Mr. Galloway seems energized by his recent electoral victory.

[OKthatsIT]

23. Its a ROVE SPIN..discrediting the UN for a Bolton vote

get out of town!

[Tinoire]

24. These are Blair’s last days - by George Galloway

Early this week, perched atop an open-air double-decker bus, megaphone in hand, Galloway barnstormed the district, lobbing verbal grenades at unsuspecting passersby:

"The liar Blair and the killer Bush ... are waging war on Muslims," he declared. He vilified the two for their "simian swagger." King, he said, should be defeated because she "voted for the slaughter of 100,000 innocent people."

dailynews.yahoo.com/s/chitribts/20050504/ ts_chicagotrib/glovesareoffinmpracefullofiraqwartension

Mr Blair. All the people you killed, all the lies you told have come back to haunt you "
- George Galloway


These are Blair’s last days

Iraq is our greatest foreign policy calamity in modern history and the reckoning has only just begun

George Galloway
Tuesday May 3, 2005
The Guardian UK

When I first called the prime minister a liar on air over his repeatedly denied plans to invade Iraq - in the wake of the Texas meeting with George Bush in spring 2002 - the BBC presenter was aghast at my presumption. Today there can scarcely be a sentient being in the land who would disagree.

(reluctant snip)

He lied, and more than 100,000 died: the real blood price of his grotesque special relationship with Bush. As the epigrammist has it: "Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." The Blair betrayal is deep in the mire precisely because it has been a disastrous failure. Every "turning point" has led into a new cul-de-sac. The fall of Baghdad, the capture of Saddam, the "handover" of sovereignty, the destruction of Falluja, the much trumpeted and manipulated elections and last week, at last, a new client administration. None of these has achieved any reduction in the cycle of resistance to the occupation.

As the avalanche of leaks indicates, at the heart of the British establishment people are reaching the conclusion that Blair must pay for what he has done. He misled parliament and the people - the mandarinate might have swallowed that - but he lied to the armed forces, too. As Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, then chief of the armed forces, made clear at the weekend, he doesn’t intend to go into the dock by himself. The troops were told the war was both legal and unavoidable. We now know it was neither. They were promised a warm welcome by "liberated" Iraqis. Red-hot and razor-sharp has been the reality. This is treason - and it hasn’t prospered.


(snip)

The last redoubt of the apologists for the war is that while it might have been illegal, even unnecessary, at least it removed a tyrant. But weighed against the disfigurement of the international legal and political system, the mass graves of victims of sanctions, invasion and occupation, the surge of sectarian and ethnic strife in the country and the mass influx of recruits to Islamist fundamentalism, even the end has been undone by the means. There was no al-Qaida in Iraq before the arrival of US and British troops. Now fundamentalists are descending like spores of anthrax on the gaping wounds torn open by the war. It is without doubt the biggest foreign policy calamity in modern history.

(snip)

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5951

www.zmag.org/content/showarticle. cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7789

[DFLer4edu]

31. Coleman has got his nose in it

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5401271.html

[yellowcanine]

37. I think we should send Ken Starr over there to get to the bottom of this.

With any luck the Brits will get pissed off and toss him in the Thames River.

[chlamor]

40. Galloway-AIPAC Cell-Bolton and Coleman

Special Report
Galloway hounded by AIPAC cell within U.S. Congress; Bolton tied to same cell

Wayne Madsen, Online Journal Contributing Writer

The only new information on which Coleman is basing his allegations are interviews conducted with Iraq's former vice president and deputy prime minister both of whom are in U.S. custody and awaiting war crimes trials led by Iraqi prosecutor Salam Chalabi, a nephew of Ahmad Chalabi and law partner of Marc Zell, the Washington, DC, law partner of Douglas Feith, the person for whom accused spy Larry Franklin worked at the Pentagon while spying for Israel. If ex-Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz are receiving even one-eight the harsh treatment meted out by U.S. troops and Israeli contractors to prisoners at the Abu Ghraib concentration camp, none of their so-called testimonies are worth the paper on which they are printed.

Coleman charges that Galloway received up to 20 million barrels of oil allocations between 2000 and 2003 from Saddam's government. Galloway rightly charges that Coleman and other committee members are "lickspittle Republicans" acting in the servitude of Bush and his cronies. In addition to the statements of the imprisoned Saddam Hussein officials, Coleman is also basing his new allegations based on documents retrieved from the Iraqi Oil Ministry from convicted embezzler, con man, and neocon puppet, Ahmad Chalabi.

<snip>

Bolton had on his staff a "special adviser" named Matthew Freedman who pulled down a $110,000 per annum salary. Freedman is also a lobbyist who represents "private clients." He refused to tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who those clients were. However, it has been discovered that Freedman, a long time GOP operative like Bolton, is tied to the same oil industry network that once used Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as agents of influence.

While working for the GOP-connected public relations firm of Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly (BMS&K) and the PBN Company, Freedman counted Chevron, Bechtel, Shell, and the governments of Nigeria and Kazakhstan as clients. Freedman also represented Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Philippine President Salvador Laurel. According to The Washington Times, Laurel sought the assistance of the George H. W. Bush administration to oust President Corazon Aquino in a military coup.

   www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/051305Madsen/051305madsen.html

[UKCynic]

42. I'm looking forward

To hearing the confrontation between Galloway and the Senate and I will be backing Galloway all the way. He has things to say and knows how to say them.

This does not change the fact that I would not personally trust him round the corner and would sooner vote for Thatcher than for him. Well maybe, but fortunately I will never have to make that particular choice.

[fedsron2us]

45. Many Brits think, Galloway is a flamboyant chancer

but his willingness to take Blair and Bush on single handed wins him some admiration. The case against him appears to be based on hearsay and documents of dubious origin. Since most of the evidence originates from US controlled Iraq a lot of people are simply going to think it has been fabricated. I really do not understand why politicians in the US and UK are spending so much time pursuing Galloway as the publicity only draws attention to their own duplicity and makes him more of a threat. I suspect its because they are anally retentive control freaks who just can not stand any opposition. One more reason why I think it will eventually all blow up in their faces.