British MP: Charges 'a pack of lies'

[norml]

British MP: Charges 'a pack of lies'
Galloway denies profiting from oil-for-food program




Tuesday, May 17, 2005 Posted: 12:41 PM EDT (1641 GMT)



British Parliament member George Galloway appears Tuesday before a Senate panel.


(CNN) -- British Parliament member George Galloway on Tuesday angrily denied profiting from Saddam Hussein's regime and criticized the Senate panel probing alleged corruption the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Galloway appeared before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which stated in a report last week that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein granted him vouchers for 20 million barrels of oil between 2000 and 2003.

He called the accusations against him "a pack of lies" and told the panel that he never took "one thin dime" from Iraq.

"If you had any evidence of that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this" committee today, Galloway said.



snip



http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/17/oil.food/index.html

[flordehinojos]

1. yes... and i just saw phillip roth interview him for CNN a few minutes ago

and he answered all of the bushit smear that roth was spewing in front of him with the same forcefulness and candor that truth carries with it. George Galloway, one brave soldier in the name of truth and cleaning up of the bush shit preserve that so many are being smeared with by the bushits.

[kerrygoddess]

2. Earlier interview text

British Lawmaker Issues Scathing Words for Neocons
17 May 2005

British lawmaker George Galloway, implicated in the Iraq oil-for-food program, said today he word reject the charges against him a U.S. Senate hearing and issued some scathing words for the “Republican lynch mob.” Galloway was a witness today before the committee examining the United Nations oil-for-food program.

“This group of neocons (neoconservatives) is involved in the mother of all smokescreens,” he said of the committee. “I want to turn the tables on this neocon, pro-Israel, pro-war, Republican lynch mob.”

He earlier told Reuters that he had "no expectation of justice from a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neocon (President) George Bush who is pro-war.”

“I come not as the accused but as the accuser,” he added.


MORE - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=904

[demo dutch]

3. BBC & MSNBC stories & Video clip at this link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1479528

Great Galloway quotes!

[norml]

4. British Lawmaker Denies Oil-For-Food Claim

10:34 AM PDT, May 17, 2005 latimes.com : Nation E-mail story Print Most E-Mailed

British Lawmaker Denies Oil-For-Food Claim
By KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON -- British lawmaker George Galloway vehemently rejected a Senate subcommittee's claim that Saddam Hussein awarded him lucrative allocations under the U.N. oil-for-food program and accused its chairman of maligning his good name.

The subcommittee, chaired by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, claimed that Galloway allegedly funneled allocations through a fund he established in 1998 to help a 4-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukemia and received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003.

"I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf," Galloway testified Tuesday. "I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas."

Coleman later questioned Galloway's testimony. "If in fact he lied to this committee, there will have to be consequences," Coleman said at a news conference after the hearing.



snip



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-oil-for-food,1,356882.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines