US Senate accuses Galloway of getting favours from Saddam
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 12: A US Senate panel on Thursday accused a senior French politician and a British member of parliament of receiving kickbacks from former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein under the UN oil-for-food programme. The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has revived a controversy over whether Saddam Hussein gave oil deals to European politicians in exchange for political support.
The year-long investigation, released in Washington on Thursday, quotes Iraqi oil ministry documents to back its claim that former French interior minister Charles Pasqua got 11 million barrels in oil allocations and British lawmaker George Galloway got 20 million barrels.
Both men deny the allegations, and there is no evidence in the report of financial transactions that would confirm the two men actually sold any Iraqi oil options. Mr Galloway has told British radio that the Senate committee had not allowed him to state his case before the panel.
“This is a very peculiar type of committee. They have not written to me. They have not spoken to me,” he said. “And they have not answered my request to be heard by them, so it’s no kind of investigation, just the repetition of a false allegation.”
Mr Galloway was expelled by the ruling Labour Party after he told British troops they should disobey orders to fight in Iraq. Before the 2003 invasion, Mr Galloway was a strong opponent of international sanctions against Iraq. And he visited Baghdad on several occasions and met Saddam Hussein.
Mr Galloway successfully sued the Daily Telegraph last year after it accused him of being an agent of Saddam Hussein. The subcommittee also reported a connection between the president of Middle East Advance Semiconductor and Mr Galloway, claiming that the British MP started a charity that benefited company president Fawad Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman.
