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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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 Thu May 12, 2005 6:48 am Brit. & French Accused in Oil For Food Report |
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Senate Probes European Oil-for-Food Graft
Thursday, May 12, 2005
UNITED NATIONS � A U.S. Senate committee probing corruption in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program released new evidence purporting to show that two prominent politicians from Britain and France received millions of barrels of Iraqi oil in exchange for their support of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Citing contracts, letters and interviews with former Iraqi leaders, the probe set out evidence Wednesday to back the claim that British lawmaker George Galloway (search) and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (search) accepted oil allocations under the scheme.
Galloway and Pasqua have denied any wrongdoing in the Oil-for-Food program.
"This report exposes how Saddam Hussein turned the oil-for-food program on its head and used the program to reward his political allies like Pasqua and Galloway," Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman (search), chairman of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations, said in a statement.
� Senate Subcommittee Report (pdf)
The Oil-for-Food program was designed to let Saddam's government sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods to help the Iraqi people cope with U.N. sanctions imposed in 1991 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
But Saddam manipulated the $64 billion program to earn illegal revenues and peddle influence, by awarding former government officials, activists, U.N. officials and journalists vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.
Coleman's committee said Pasqua had received allocations worth 11 million barrels from 1999 to 2000, and Galloway received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003.
The allegations against Pasqua and Galloway, both outspoken opponents of U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, have been made before, including in a report last October by U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer (search).
But Coleman's report provided several new details. It also included information from interviews with former high-ranking officials now in U.S. custody, including former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz (search) and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan (search).
Among the claims: New evidence suggests that a children's leukemia charity founded by Galloway was in fact used to conceal oil payments.
Coleman claimed Saddam also approved Pasqua's allocations himself. The report cites Ramadan as saying in an interview that Galloway was allocated oil "because of his opinions about Iraq."
On Thursday morning in Britain, Galloway, who was re-elected to Parliament in the national election last week as a representative of his own anti-war Respect party, denied the report's claims.
Galloway described the Senate committee as a "lickspittle Republican committee, acting on the wishes of George Bush."
"Let me repeat. I have never traded in a barrel of oil, or any vouchers for it," he said in a written statement. "And no one has acted on my behalf, trading in oil � Middle Eastern, olive, patchouli (search) or any other � or in vouchers, whatever they are."
Galloway said he had sent letters and e-mails asking to appear before the Senate committee to provide evidence and deny their claims, but had not received a response.
The flamboyant Galloway, nicknamed "Gorgeous George" by the British press for his expensive suits, pugnacious manner and far-left politics, defeated a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party and strong supporter of the Iraq war, Oona King, in a largely Muslim district of East London.
Reached late Wednesday, aides to Pasqua refused to comment.
The report includes what Coleman said was a copy of a contract from Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization that mentions Mariam's Appeal (search), a fund Galloway established in 1998 to help a 4-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukemia, Mariam Hamze.
It says the fund may have been used to conceal the transfer of 3 million barrels of oil.
Coleman's subcommittee said the evidence it found against Galloway was different from documents reported in the Daily Telegraph newspaper in April 2003 alleging that he took money from Saddam's regime.
Galloway filed a libel suit over the story and won $1.4 million from the Daily Telegraph last year. Galloway also accepted undisclosed damages and a public apology from the Christian Science Monitor over an article it published alleging he took money from Saddam's regime. That report was based on documents that later proved to be forgeries.
As for Pasqua, the report claims the State Oil Marketing Organization wrangled with one of his aides over the best way to deliver oil allocations to him.
SOMO wanted it done through a French company, but Pasqua's aide, Bernard Guillet (search), insisted it be done through a Swiss company called Genmar (search), Coleman's committee said. The organization requested a letter to that effect.
"According to SOMO, Guillet refused to send such a letter, explaining that 'they cannot do that fearing political scandals,'" the report said.
Genmar was eventually approved and SOMO went on to allocate millions of barrels of oil to it, Coleman claimed.
The report said Guillet received 5 million barrels. Guillet is currently under investigation in France for suspected influence-peddling and receiving misappropriated funds.
Coleman's subcommittee is one of several U.S. congressional bodies investigating allegations of wrongdoing in Oil-for-Food.
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Dirt
Exercise Boy
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 2086
Location: a tree
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| Thu May 12, 2005 11:03 am |
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It's all us Europeans huh?  It's silly how yankees can think of us all being one. (And yes I am aware I said yankees, I so did that on purpose )
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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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| Thu May 12, 2005 12:22 pm |
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| Dirt wrote: | | It's all us Europeans huh? It's silly how yankees can think of us all being one. (And yes I am aware I said yankees, I so did that on purpose ) |
I read the article twice, very carefully. I missed the part that said it was only Europeans.
And could it be that we "yankees" think of Europe as all one because of the European Union?
-------signature-------
"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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Dirt
Exercise Boy
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 2086
Location: a tree
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| Thu May 12, 2005 4:10 pm |
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I know, and that is silly that you do. Because we euos don't experience it that way. We're all seperate nations and the EU is hardly a thing that binds us all togheter. But anyway, sorry for the confusion, on cnn.com it said "Europeans accused in Iraq report"... myyyyyy mistake.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Thu May 12, 2005 4:51 pm |
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Britain...well, that surprises me somewhat. But France? This is late. There's DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE of bribes to the Chirac government, for istance 
-------signature-------
"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Dirt
Exercise Boy
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 2086
Location: a tree
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| Thu May 12, 2005 4:53 pm |
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And still he gets elected, always knew the French are kinda stupid
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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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| Fri May 13, 2005 1:40 pm |
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| Quote: | US senators will get 'good hiding' pledges Galloway
George Galloway pledged that he would give a "bloody good hiding" to a US Senate committee over accusations that he was granted allocations for millions of barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein's regime.
Mr Galloway said he would fly to Washington next week to defend himself in person against allegations about the UN's oil-for-food programme published by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The anti-war Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow denied claims in the committee's report that Iraqi documents and interviews with senior figures in Saddam's regime showed he was granted allocations of oil under the programme.
He denounced the committee for publishing the claims without giving him the opportunity to answer the allegations. He said: "Even in Kafka there was a trial of sorts."
Mr Galloway will face the committee next week after its Republican chairman, Norm Coleman, issued an invitation for him to appear on Tuesday. The firebrand left-winger will clash with Mr Coleman, the ambitious freshman senator for Minnesota whose website says that "full-throated debate on the issues of the day" were always on the menu at his childhood kitchen table.
A spokesman for Senator Coleman said Mr Galloway would be invited to appear at a meeting entitled "Oil For Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme." He said: "The hearing will begin promptly at 9.30am and there will be a witness chair and microphone available for Mr Galloway's use."
Mr Galloway said he would accuse the committee of producing a "travesty" of natural justice.
He said: "I'm going to call them a bunch of liars.
"I'll be there to give them both barrels - verbal guns, of course, not oil - assuming we get the visas. I welcome the opportunity to clear my name. My first words will be 'Senator, it's a pity that we are having this interview after you have found me guilty.'
"This is a right-wing committee with an agenda that reached its conclusion before even considering the facts. Joseph McCarthy must be smiling admiringly in Hades."
The committee's report said Mr Galloway was named in documents from Iraq's ministry of oil.
A spokesman for the committee confirmed it had no evidence Mr Galloway benefited financially from the alleged allocation of 20 million barrels of oil.
"We have presented the evidence that the allocations were granted," Tom Steward, a spokesman for Senator Coleman, told The Independent.
"That was confirmed by the senior Iraqi government officials we spoke to. They knew he was being rewarded for his support for the regime. [But] we don't have the paperwork to confirm the final element of the transaction."
Mr Galloway said: "I have no problem with anybody investigating the oil-for-food programme because I had nothing to do with the oil-for-food programme in any shape or form.
"I have never traded in anything with Iraq and neither has anybody on my behalf. I have never profited a single penny piece from my work in Iraq."
He added: "The point is, who knows who wrote my name on that piece of paper and when they wrote it."
Mr Galloway said he contacted the US Senate to put his point of view, but had not been contacted by the committee to give evidence. But a spokesman claimed that "at no time did Mr Galloway contact the [committee] by any means, including but not limited to telephone, fax, e-mail, letter, Morse code or carrier pigeon."
The committee said it had sought to inform Mr Galloway of the allegations.
The Independant
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