Galloway attacks senate over oil claims
Far from showing the usual deference of witnesses before Congress, the Scotsman defiantly told a Senate committee its evidence against him was false.
Mr Galloway bluntly confronted the Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Norm Coleman.
Mr Galloway was appearing before the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is examining how Saddam Hussein used oil to reward his supporters.
A maverick kicked out of the British Labour Party for his comments on the Iraq war and for personal attacks on Tony Blair, Mr Galloway lashed out at the Bush administration over Iraq.
“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong,” he pointedly told Mr Coleman, whom he labelled a “neo-con, pro-war hawk”.
The committee last week released documents it said showed Saddam gave Mr Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the defunct humanitarian programme.
Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, now a French senator, also was named in the US Senate report, which said he got vouchers for 11 million barrels. Mr Pasqua, who also denied the allegations, was not at the hearing.
The UN oil-for-food programme, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was aimed at easing the impact of sanctions.
With Mr Galloway looking on, senate investigators laid out their case against him and others, presenting documents they said showed he received oil allocations.
Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee, told senators that Mr Galloway had used his cancer charity Mariam’s Appeal to conceal these allocations and provided several Oil Ministry documents referring to the charity.
Mr Coleman’s panel also gave details about Iraqi oil allocations to Russia’s presidential council, which advises Vladimir Putin. Senate investigators said there was no evidence that Mr Putin knew of the payments.
The committee also said 75 million barrels of oil were allocated to Vladimir Zhirinovsky - the Russian ultra-nationalist.
