KWJams
04-23-2003, 01:01 AM
<<-Story Here->> (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15009-2003Apr22.html) :(
LONDON, April 22 -- A British newspaper reported today that it had obtained Iraqi intelligence files showing that the deposed government of Saddam Hussein paid close to $600,000 a year to a British lawmaker who is an outspoken member of the anti-war movement.
The papers say that George Galloway, the lawmaker, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent and sought a larger portion of the revenues, which came in part from the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program, which was intended to allow Iraq to import humanitarian supplies, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One memo, a report from the chief of Iraqi intelligence to Hussein's office, states that Galloway was getting a percentage of Iraqi oil revenues and food contracts that, in the Telegraph's calculation, amounted to 375,000 British pounds per year, or nearly $600,000.
The newspaper said that David Blair, one of its correspondents in Baghdad, located the documents in the burned and looted foreign ministry headquarters. The signature of the intelligence chief on a documented dated Jan. 2, 2000, is illegible, the newspaper said.
Galloway today strongly denied taking money from the Iraqi government and said the documents were forgeries and part of a smear campaign against him, which he suggested was organized either by the British government or by the staunchly right-of-center Telegraph.
"I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions," he said in a statement. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one."
"Maybe it is the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture," the Telegraph quoted him as saying. "Maybe the Daily Telegraph forged it. Who knows?"
Dubbed the "member for Baghdad Central" by some lawmakers and "Gorgeous George" by others, Galloway, 48, is a maverick member of the ruling Labor Party who is widely derided in Parliament as an apologist for Hussein. He was a regular speaker at the mass anti-war rallies that shook Prime Minister Tony Blair's government earlier this year when Blair authorized British forces to join the American military campaign in Iraq.
Galloway headed the Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child, which raised funds for humanitarian purposes inside Iraq and campaigned for lifting the U.N. trade sanctions against Iraq. He said that the fund did not receive any financial help from Iraq for its activities.
The documents indicate that Galloway was receiving a cut of oil revenues through an intermediary in Iraq, Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat. The alleged memo says Zureikat told Iraqi intelligence that Galloway needed "continuous financial support from Iraq."
"His projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work," says the purported memo. It also details an alleged meeting between Galloway and an unnamed Iraqi spy in December 1999.
Galloway said today that such a meeting never took place. In his statement he acknowledged that Zureikat was chairman of the appeal, and one of its three main sources of funding, along with the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Among the papers found in the Baghdad, the Telegraph reported, was a letter signed by Galloway stating that Zureikat was the appeal's representative in Baghdad.
But Galloway said the paper's claim he had met Iraqi intelligence officials was incorrect "to the best of my knowledge."
"Given that I have had access over the years to Iraq's political leadership, most often the deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, I would have absolutely no reason to be meeting with an official of Iraqi intelligence," stated Galloway, who said he would sue the Telegraph for libel.
He said: "I have never in my life to my knowledge ever met an Iraqi intelligence agent."
Telegraph correspondent Blair insisted the papers were genuine. He told the BBC: "I think it would require an enormous amount of imagination to believe that someone went to the trouble of composing a forged document in Arabic and then planting it in a file of patently authentic documents and burying it in a darkened room on the off-chance that a British journalist might happen upon it and might bother to translate it. That strikes me as so wildly improbable as to be virtually inconceivable."
But Galloway said that Blair acknowledged that the other contents of the ministry had been completely destroyed. "He couldn't explain why these files were unburned and un-destroyed," he told the BBC. "And if you follow the Telegraph group you'll see that the previous Sunday they came up with intelligence issues surrounding France, the week before that, intelligence issues surrounding Russia and this week it's me.
"It seems that the Telegraph group are the sewer of choice for those interested in intelligence matters."
He visited Iraq on several occasions and held talks with Hussein and key members of his government. "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability," he once told the Iraqi dictator.
He already faced expulsion from the Labor Party, after telling Abu Dhabi Television in an interview during the military campaign that Tony Blair and George Bush were "wolves" for the "crime" of military action against Iraq.
One Foreign Office minister, Ben Bradshaw, accused Galloway of being "not just an apologist but a mouthpiece for the Iraq regime over many years."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
LONDON, April 22 -- A British newspaper reported today that it had obtained Iraqi intelligence files showing that the deposed government of Saddam Hussein paid close to $600,000 a year to a British lawmaker who is an outspoken member of the anti-war movement.
The papers say that George Galloway, the lawmaker, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent and sought a larger portion of the revenues, which came in part from the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program, which was intended to allow Iraq to import humanitarian supplies, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One memo, a report from the chief of Iraqi intelligence to Hussein's office, states that Galloway was getting a percentage of Iraqi oil revenues and food contracts that, in the Telegraph's calculation, amounted to 375,000 British pounds per year, or nearly $600,000.
The newspaper said that David Blair, one of its correspondents in Baghdad, located the documents in the burned and looted foreign ministry headquarters. The signature of the intelligence chief on a documented dated Jan. 2, 2000, is illegible, the newspaper said.
Galloway today strongly denied taking money from the Iraqi government and said the documents were forgeries and part of a smear campaign against him, which he suggested was organized either by the British government or by the staunchly right-of-center Telegraph.
"I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions," he said in a statement. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one."
"Maybe it is the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture," the Telegraph quoted him as saying. "Maybe the Daily Telegraph forged it. Who knows?"
Dubbed the "member for Baghdad Central" by some lawmakers and "Gorgeous George" by others, Galloway, 48, is a maverick member of the ruling Labor Party who is widely derided in Parliament as an apologist for Hussein. He was a regular speaker at the mass anti-war rallies that shook Prime Minister Tony Blair's government earlier this year when Blair authorized British forces to join the American military campaign in Iraq.
Galloway headed the Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child, which raised funds for humanitarian purposes inside Iraq and campaigned for lifting the U.N. trade sanctions against Iraq. He said that the fund did not receive any financial help from Iraq for its activities.
The documents indicate that Galloway was receiving a cut of oil revenues through an intermediary in Iraq, Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat. The alleged memo says Zureikat told Iraqi intelligence that Galloway needed "continuous financial support from Iraq."
"His projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work," says the purported memo. It also details an alleged meeting between Galloway and an unnamed Iraqi spy in December 1999.
Galloway said today that such a meeting never took place. In his statement he acknowledged that Zureikat was chairman of the appeal, and one of its three main sources of funding, along with the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Among the papers found in the Baghdad, the Telegraph reported, was a letter signed by Galloway stating that Zureikat was the appeal's representative in Baghdad.
But Galloway said the paper's claim he had met Iraqi intelligence officials was incorrect "to the best of my knowledge."
"Given that I have had access over the years to Iraq's political leadership, most often the deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, I would have absolutely no reason to be meeting with an official of Iraqi intelligence," stated Galloway, who said he would sue the Telegraph for libel.
He said: "I have never in my life to my knowledge ever met an Iraqi intelligence agent."
Telegraph correspondent Blair insisted the papers were genuine. He told the BBC: "I think it would require an enormous amount of imagination to believe that someone went to the trouble of composing a forged document in Arabic and then planting it in a file of patently authentic documents and burying it in a darkened room on the off-chance that a British journalist might happen upon it and might bother to translate it. That strikes me as so wildly improbable as to be virtually inconceivable."
But Galloway said that Blair acknowledged that the other contents of the ministry had been completely destroyed. "He couldn't explain why these files were unburned and un-destroyed," he told the BBC. "And if you follow the Telegraph group you'll see that the previous Sunday they came up with intelligence issues surrounding France, the week before that, intelligence issues surrounding Russia and this week it's me.
"It seems that the Telegraph group are the sewer of choice for those interested in intelligence matters."
He visited Iraq on several occasions and held talks with Hussein and key members of his government. "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability," he once told the Iraqi dictator.
He already faced expulsion from the Labor Party, after telling Abu Dhabi Television in an interview during the military campaign that Tony Blair and George Bush were "wolves" for the "crime" of military action against Iraq.
One Foreign Office minister, Ben Bradshaw, accused Galloway of being "not just an apologist but a mouthpiece for the Iraq regime over many years."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company