WASHINGTON — A prominent British politician linked to illegal payments in the Iraq oil-for-food program told U.S. senators Tuesday that their investigation was "the mother of all smoke screens" to divert attention from "the real scandal": U.S. policy in Iraq.
British legislator George Galloway is among several foreign politicians whom the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused last week of receiving options to buy discounted Iraqi oil in return for helping Saddam Hussein's regime evade United Nations sanctions. The holders of such options could sell them to oil traders at a profit. Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and Russian lawmaker Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky were also named. All three have denied wrongdoing.
But Galloway, an outspoken critic of the sanctions on Iraq and the U.S.-led invasion of the country, was the only one who traveled to Washington to defend himself. He testified under oath and without immunity but used harsh language that shook up the typically staid hearing room.
Galloway described the committee chairman, Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, as a "pro-war, neocon hawk and the lickspittle of George W. Bush" who, he said, sought revenge against anyone who did not support the invasion of Iraq.
"Now, I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," he said, accusing Coleman of not giving him a chance to respond to the charges before circulating the committee's report. "I am here today, but last week you already found me guilty."
Last week, Coleman released a report charging that Galloway had received oil allocations of 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2004 and had a Jordanian associate, Fawaz Zureikat, sell the oil and funnel the revenue through a charity.
The report also says that former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz confirmed that Galloway was on their list of friends to be rewarded.
Galloway denied trading oil or having anyone trade it on his behalf and questioned the validity of any information extracted from a prisoner facing war crimes charges, "knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners," he said.
"Now, 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 Baghdad," he told Coleman.
