Galloway denies oil accusations
Respect MP George Galloway has roundly condemned the US Senate committee that accused him of being given the right to buy oil by Saddam Hussein.
Speaking to the committee investigating the UN oil-for-food-programme in Washington, the newly elected Bethnal Green and Bow MP denied all oil dealings with Iraq.
In a heated exchange he accused the Bush administration of setting up the “mother of all smokescreens” to take the heat off what he believes was an illegal war in Iraq.
Mr Galloway began by reiterating his previous denials, saying: “I have not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf.”
He accused the committee of being “cavalier” by failing to contact him before issuing a public accusation last week, although the committee denies this.
He said documents being used as evidence were identical to those published in the Daily Telegraph, from whom Mr Galloway received considerable libel damages last December.
Similar reports in the Christian Science Monitor and the Mail on Sunday were based on the same, “fraudulent” documents, the MP insisted.
He described attempts by the committee to portray its evidence as different from that already used as a “schoolboy howler”.
“It is a proven fact that these fraudulent documents existed and were being circulated in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi regime,” he told the committee.
He denied claims from former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan that Mr Galloway had accepted oil vouchers under the oil for food programme.
“I have never met Taha Yassin Ramadan. If Ramadin said what he said then he is wrong,” Mr Galloway said.
He also dismissed evidence against him from disgraced former Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi as a “convicted bank robber, fraudster and conman”.
One document produced by the committee lists a transaction in which Mr Galloway allegedly received oil rights and is signed in the name of “Fawaz Zuraigat/George Galloway/Aredio Petroleum” and names Mr Galloway’s Mariam Appeal.
However, Mr Galloway denied knowing that Mr Zuraigat, chairman of the Mariam Appeal, was involved in the Iraqi oil business.
“I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone in this company, this company has never paid me,” he said.
“I assure you. Aredio Petroleum has never paid a penny to the Mariam Appeal, not a thin dime. They would confirm they have never met me.”
He continued: “If you had any evidence that I had ever been in oil transaction. it would be before the public and before this committee today.
“What counts is not the names on the paper but where the money is. Who paid me thousands of pounds? The answer is nobody.”
