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Galloway bluster fails to convince Senate
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT
Key points
Galloway's testimony against accusations leaves US Senate bewildered
Respect MP used meeting as platform for vocal criticism of Iraq war
US Senate remains to unsure of Galloway's credibility and approach
Key quote
"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns." - GEORGE GALLOWAY
Story in full GEORGE Galloway yesterday failed in his attempt to convince a sceptical US Senate investigative committee that he had not profited from oil dealings with Iraq under the UNs controversial oil-for-food programme.
Despite a typically barnstorming performance full of bluster and rhetorical flourishes, the former Glasgow Kelvin MP was pinned down by persistent questioning over his business relationship with Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of the Mariam Appeal - set up to assist a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia.
And it was a Democrat senator, Carl Levin, rather than the Republican committee chairman, Norm Coleman, who gave him the hardest time as Mr Galloway sought to turn the tables on his inquisitors, leaving him no closer to clearing his name than when he took his seat in front of the sub-committee of the Senates homeland security and government affairs committee in Washington.
Time and again, Mr Levin questioned him, requesting wearily that he deliver a straight answer to a straight question. But Mr Galloway could, or would not.
The Respect MP clearly thought he came out on top, and said so bluntly afterwards, describing the chairman as "not much of a lyncher".
But Mr Coleman, accused by the MP of being "remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice", appeared unswayed by Mr Galloways testimony. "If in fact he lied to this committee, there will have to be consequences," he said afterwards.
Asked whether Mr Galloway violated his oath to tell the truth before the committee, Mr Coleman said: "I dont know. Well have to look over the record. I just dont think he was a credible witness."
The committees report on Mr Galloways alleged involvement, published to coincide with yesterdays hearing, pulled few punches. Despite the MPs denials, it said, the evidence showed that: "Iraq granted George Galloway allocations for millions of barrels of oil under the oil-for-food programme.
"Moreover, some evidence indicates that Galloway appeared to use a charity for childrens leukaemia to conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation. Lastly, according to senior Saddam officials, the oil allocations were granted by Iraq because of Galloways support for the Saddam regime and his opposition to UN sanctions."
Mr Galloway, the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, had pledged to take the fight to the committee and did not disappoint. Sitting up straight, he stared ahead as he delivered an impassioned diatribe against the US approach to Iraq.
"I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf," he told the chairman. "I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas."
In a lengthy opening statement, Mr Galloway insisted the sub-committee had no evidence against him.
"You have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Iraq."
And Mr Galloway rejected a claim in the sub-committees report that he had had "many" meetings with Saddam Hussein, saying he had only met the former dictator twice.
"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns," he said.
It was the speech of a man believing himself wronged: "I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq," he said. "And I told the world that the case for war was a pack of lies."
And he poured scorn on the documentation produced in evidence against him, insisting, on his oath, that he had never heard of the company which, it was suggested, acted as a conduit for oil deals on his behalf.
He accused the sub-committee of committing a "schoolboy howler" in its presentation of the evidence.
Under repeated questioning, Mr Galloway conceded that Mr Zureikat did have extensive business dealings with the Saddam regime but, challenged over whether his friends generous contributions to the Mariam Appeal - £900,000 by his own previous assessments - could have come from the sale of oil, he stonewalled.
Urged to say if he would repay the cash if it could be proved to have come from such a source, he again ducked the question. Mr Galloway first met Mr Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman, through his now-estranged wife Amineh Abu-Zayyad, who had attended the same university in Jordan. The men became friends and set up the Mariam Appeal in 1998.
BBC Scotland flew its own reporter, Bob Wylie, out to cover Mr Galloways appearance, while the corporation is looking to make job cuts and savings
Yes and not exactly his 'head on a platter.'Bullypulpit said:I don't know if you actually saw MP Galloway's testimony before the committee, but he handed Norm Coleman's head to him on a platter...
OCA said:Head on a platter? I watched this on the tele and this guy sounded like a blithering idiot, not to mention that he was a friend of Sadaam. This guy was probably loaded on a shitload of single malt and bitter like most Scotsmen.
Bullypulpit said:There you go again...projecting your own inadequacies onto others.
Why did Norm spend so much time shuffling papers and unwilling to make eye contact with MP Galloway? It was because he knew he was out-classed and out of his depth. Norm was bearded in his own den.
This is just another case of the administration attempting to destroy any who speak in opposition to its policies. He's already been throught the same thing in Britain, and came out on top. Winning a libel suit based on the same documents Norm's committee cited and winning a seat in Parliament after being pushed out of Blair's Labor party. BTW, this was done because he called Dubbyuh and Blair "wolves" for pursuing war with Iraq.
Kathianne said:Yes and not exactly his 'head on a platter.'
Question for you? Did you see what Carl Levin did?
Another: Ahem, in spite of what's happening on Bolton, judges; the Senate still has a working relationship, which is why in these circumstances Levin was the 'lead attacker.'
One more: You remember Watergate hearings? There was a reason that the lead attackers were Republicans. You DO remember who was toughest on Nixon?
While you see 'war' with your opposition, some do realize there may well be threats without also.
Bullypulpit said:Carl Levin didn't do much of anything. And it's a pity Republicans have lost their independence since the '70's. Now, they're just another buch of unprincipled, oportunistic scumbags who would sell their own mother's ass on the streets for a vote.
Since they attained a majority in Congress in '94, it's only taken them about 10 years to become more corrupt than the Democrats did in 40 years.
Kathianne said:Bully you are in denial. Do not be surprised if the Senate acts on this.
Bullypulpit said:No, dear lady, I am not. And their are bigger fish to fry than a back-bencher from the House of Commons, and those fish are here at home.
May 24, 2005
With all due RESPECT, Mr. Galloway
"Gorgeous George" has made a big come-back since his expulsion from the Labour party in the UK. After his close win for an MP seat, he has gotten the adoration of many opposed to the war and the Bush administration for his fiery performance in front of a Senate committee on May 17th. The media doesn't have any problem transparently showing off their bias in this regard, here are a few headlines:
Finally, Someone Stands Up to Senate Hypocrites - LATimes
Gorgeous George batters Bushs beautiful fairy tale - Times UK
British Lawmaker Scolds Senators on Iraq - NYTimes
Papers hail fighting Galloway - BBC
I think we see where this is going...
After listening to Galloway's testimony, I specifically remembered one thing quite well which made me wonder. After contending that he had known all along about his Mariam Appeal (the political organization they set up to protest the Iraq sanctions) partner's business dealings with Iraq. All except the oil deals Mr. Zureikat apparently was doing with the regime. In explaining this, he said as many times before that he had "done better" than what the senators asked of him. The relevant exchange:
SEN. COLEMAN: So Mr. Galloway, you would have this committee believe that your designated representative from the Mariam's Appeal becomes the chair of the Mariam's Appeal, was listed in Iraqi documents as obviously doing business, oil deals with Iraq, that you never had a conversation with him in 2001 or whether he was doing oil business with Iraq.
GALLOWAY: No, I'm doing better than that. I'm telling you that I knew that he was doing a vast amount of business with Iraq. Much bigger, as I said a couple of answers ago, than any oil business he did. In the airports he was the representative of some of the world's biggest companies in Iraq. He was an extremely wealthy businessman doing very extensive business in Iraq.
Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature, on our Web site, precisely so that people like you could not later credibly question my bonafides in that regard. So I did better than that.
I never asked him if he was trading in oil. I knew he was a big trader with Iraq, and I told everybody about it.
http://simplyappalling.blogspot.com/2005/05/complete-testimony-of-george-galloway.html
So he "emblazoned" on the Mariam Appeal website that Mr. Zureikat was doing vast amounts of business with Iraq, he says. He clarifies this further later on:
GALLOWAY: I have already answered that question. I can assure you, Mr. Zureikat never gave me a penny from an oil deal, from a cake deal, from a bread deal, or from any deal. He donated money to our campaign, which we publicly brandished on all of our literature, along with the other donors to the campaign.
After hearing that they had published that Mr. Zureikat was a donor to the campaign and that he was doing extensive business with Iraq on their website, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look, you know, because I don't go around believing whatever people say just because I like their ideology.
Now I'm guessing that Galloway as a career politician at the ripe age of 50 has a bit limited knowledge of how the internet works, and what is possible on the internet. You see, the Mariam Appeal website has been out of commission since at least September 20, 2002. How do I know that? From using a service called WHOIS. It tells you who holds the rights to a domain name and various information about the registration of the domain name.
The website changed owners on September 20, 2002 when it was registered by a Taiwanese company, most likely acting as cyber-squatters, hoping that someone would buy the domain name from them. Perhaps Mariam Appeal forgot to renew their domain name, and the Taiwanese company snapped it up from them. Regardless, you can see that the Mariam Appeal domain name was registered by the Taiwanese company at this WHOIS service. As you can clearly see on the website as it now exists, and has existed since September 20, 2002 it says, "FOR SALE!!! Contact Us!!!"
Galloway, knowing full well that his website was down, told the Senate committee that he had "emblazoned" on his website that his partner in the organization had extensive business dealings with Iraq and was a donator to the campaign. Thus he most likely believed that there would be no way to check if he was lying or not.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Using an awesome website called the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we can look up how the Mariam Appeal website appeared throughout the past few years. I'm fairly certain that Mr. Galloway was not aware of this, for if he was, I'm not certain he would have made the statements he made.
Using this website, the last recorded instance of www.mariamappeal.com, when it was still under control of Mariam Appeal and George Galloway, was on July 21, 2001. As you can see on the website at this point in time, there is absolutely no mention of Mr. Zureikat or any other donors to the organization at all. There is no mention of Mr. Zureikat being in extensive business dealings with Iraq. Nothing.
The next instance of the website that is recorded on this service is September 23, 2002. At this point, the domain name has been transferred to the Taiwanese company, and they have set up their page for the sale of the domain name.
Galloway made the following statements regarding the timing of his partner's donations and becoming a representative within the organization:
SEN. COLEMAN: How much did Mr. Zureikat contribute to Mariam's Appeals?
GALLOWAY: Roughly 375,000 English pounds.
SEN. COLEMAN: About $600,000?
GALLOWAY: I don't know the conversion. But it's 375,000 Sterling.
SEN. COLEMAN: If you can, uh... By the way, Mr. Zureikat was your representative--uh, designated representative--for the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Is that correct?
GALLOWAY: For the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Yes.
SEN. COLEMAN: And when did he get that position?
GALLOWAY: I think late 2000.
[...]
Bullypulpit said:There you go again...projecting your own inadequacies onto others.
Why did Norm spend so much time shuffling papers and unwilling to make eye contact with MP Galloway? It was because he knew he was out-classed and out of his depth. Norm was bearded in his own den.
This is just another case of the administration attempting to destroy any who speak in opposition to its policies. He's already been throught the same thing in Britain, and came out on top. Winning a libel suit based on the same documents Norm's committee cited and winning a seat in Parliament after being pushed out of Blair's Labor party. BTW, this was done because he called Dubbyuh and Blair "wolves" for pursuing war with Iraq.
