I don’t know if George Galloway is guilty of taking money from Saddam Hussein. If he is, he should be punished.
However, the Senate Commitee looking into the Oil for Food scandal believes Galloway was a beneficiary and has called him to testify… which he has done.
And boy is he saying everything I wish *I* could say to the US Administration regarding their outright hypocrisy.
The BBC has a video feed of his testimony as well as a page of his direct statements.
A few choice ones….
Senator [Norm Coleman, committee chairman], this is the mother of all smoke screens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq’s wealth.
… You have nothing on me Senator [Coleman], except my name on lists of names in Iraq, many of which were drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Iraq.
… I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice.
… Senator [Coleman], in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies
Preach on Brotha!
(And might I remind people that Mr. Galloway was re-elected in his riding in the most recent UK Elections.)
There’s no way to know if Galloway actually is guilty, but it’s notable that he has just won a whopping libel settlement against the Telegraph for publishing essentially the same allegations.
Frankly, to me it looks like a smear job designed to discredit opponents of the war.
Mr Galloway seems to me to be an advocate of the old tried and true tactic of “the best defence is a good offence” and is not terrible convincing. He mouthed a variety of platitudes and leftist accusations with great vigor but full of inaccuracies as usual. Yaaawn. All I got to say to Galloway is nothing if not unoriginal.