Galloway was in Saddam's pay, say secret Iraqi documents (PACIFISTS ON SADDAM PAYROLL)

The Daily Telegraph ^ | April 22, 2003 | David Blair

[MadIvan]

George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad.

A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme.

He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad.

Asked to explain the document, he said yesterday: "Maybe it is the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture. Maybe The Daily Telegraph forged it. Who knows?"

When the letter from the head of the Iraqi intelligence service was read to him, he said: "The truth is I have never met, to the best of my knowledge, any member of Iraqi intelligence. I have never in my life seen a barrel of oil, let alone owned, bought or sold one."

In the papers, which were found in the looted foreign ministry, Iraqi intelligence continually stresses the need for secrecy about Mr Galloway's alleged business links with the regime. One memo says that payments to him must be made under "commercial cover".

For more than a decade, Mr Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, has been the leading critic of Anglo-American policy towards Iraq, campaigning against sanctions and the war that toppled Saddam.

He led the Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child he flew to Britain for leukaemia treatment. The campaign was the supposed beneficiary of his fund-raising.

But the papers say that, behind the scenes, Mr Galloway was conducting a relationship with Iraqi intelligence. Among documents found in the foreign ministry was a memorandum from the chief of the Mukhabarat to Saddam's office on Jan 3, 2000, marked "Confidential and Personal".

It purported to outline talks between Mr Galloway and an Iraqi spy. During the meeting on Boxing Day 1999, Mr Galloway detailed his campaign plans for the year ahead.

The spy chief wrote that Mr Galloway told the Mukhabarat agent: "He [Galloway] needs continuous financial support from Iraq. He obtained through Mr Tariq Aziz [deputy prime minister] three million barrels of oil every six months, according to the oil for food programme. His share would be only between 10 and 15 cents per barrel."

Iraq's oil sales, administered by the United Nations, were intended to pay for only essential humanitarian supplies. If the memo was accurate, Mr Galloway's share would have amounted to about £375,000 per year.

The documents say that Mr Galloway entered into partnership with a named Iraqi oil broker to sell the oil on the international market.

The memorandum continues: "He [Galloway] also obtained a limited number of food contracts with the ministry of trade. The percentage of its profits does not go above one per cent."

The Iraqi spy chief, whose illegible signature appears at the bottom of the memorandum, says that Mr Galloway asked for more money.

"He suggested to us the following: first, increase his share of oil; second, grant him exceptional commercial and contractual facilities." The spy chief, who is not named, recommends acceptance of the proposals.

Mr Galloway's intermediary in Iraq was Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian. In a letter found in one foreign ministry file, Mr Galloway wrote: "This is to certify that Mr Fawaz A Zureikat is my representative in Baghdad on all matters concerning my work with the Mariam Appeal or the Emergency Committee in Iraq."

The intelligence chief's memorandum describes a meeting with Mr Zureikat in which he said that Mr Galloway's campaigning on behalf of Iraq was putting "his future as a British MP in a circle surrounded by many question marks and doubts".

Mr Zureikat is then quoted as saying: "His projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work and, because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and exceptional commercial opportunities to provide him with an income under commercial cover, without being connected to him directly."

Mr Zureikat is said to have emphasised that the "name of Mr Galloway or his wife should not be mentioned".

[Tommyjo]

Although I have never liked Galloway, something does not add up here. Remember Arthur Scargill and the allegations that he took Libyian money? The media were forced to eat humble pie when nothing could be proved. Paper work such as this can be faked and Galloway was a prime target for such a scam. I think that the Telegraph in the end will be paying out a lump sum to Galloway in compensation if they decided to press ahead with the story.

[MadIvan]

Nonsense. The documentation was found in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry itself. How likely is it that someone planted this information in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, deep in the middle of a file, in a remote storage room, just on the off chance a British journalist would find it and discredit a relatively obscure Labour MP?

They got him.

Regards, Ivan

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[Centurion2000]

This could get quite interesting whenever the American names start popping up. And they will...you can count on it.

Hmmm ... well they can't press for treason on documents alone ....

[Windcatcher]

No, but the IRS, FBI, and DOJ will crawl up their sphincters with a MICROSCOPE.

Follow the money.

[Humidston]

Rushing today and no time to read entire thread, but wanted to add Rush's comments today - in case nobody has.... It would look like this stands to take down MANY pols around the world, including the UN!! Rush says,

Oversite of Food for Oil Program was UN/Koffee

Koffee decided WHO got the oil and picked France, Russia, Syria.
The UN got a 2.2% commission and KOFFEE ADMINISTERED IT.
Rush says this is Enron x 100,000!!!

[Humidston]

PS... That's 2.2% of MILLIONS of dollars A DAY.

[skr]

"The same laws can be applied."

Good!

[Victoria Delsoul]

The documents say that Mr Galloway entered into partnership with a named Iraqi oil broker to sell the oil on the international market.

Alas the hypocrisy!!! As Bertrand Russell stated, "We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.

[Senator Goldwater]

To George Galloway
From Led Zeppelin III:

"Now I laugh, oh so hard
to see you swinging on the gallow's pole"

[MinuteGal]

Ivan, what is the British equivalent of our IRS?

After a story like this broke, it seems to me that if I were a member of Congress with a yearly published salary, the IRS would be at my doorstep in a NY minute. It would be investigating where my yearly half-a-million dollar extra income was coming from, especially if I owned and was maintaining "villas" here and there around the world on a representative's salary.

It also seems to me that this leftist MP is in a catch-22. He either didn't report his income truthfully, in which case, he's toast.

Or, if he DID report it as legal income and claims it was for "work performed" for Saddam's regime, he's toast also.

Please keep us informed if he's being investigated by your "IRS" equivalent or any other authorities, or if he's only being tried in the press.

[Frances_Marion]

Well well well...I'm sure nobody here is suprised that the most anti-American and aggressive protesters of action against Iraq are payed mouthpieces of the Ba'athist socialists.

[Diddle E. Squat]

bump

[buffyt]

Bill & Hill??????

[Marysecretary]

Ah, school of Oriental and African Studies. Hmm, figures. Some of them can be way out there.

[Tommyjo]

Galloway matter settled

By a staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor and British Member of Parliament George Galloway have reached a settlement, including a payment to him, over an article based on documents the Monitor obtained last April in Baghdad.
The documents purported to show payments from the Saddam Hussein regime to Mr. Galloway over a period of 12 years, but the Monitor eventually performed ink-dating tests that discredited the documents, suggesting they were almost certainly forged. The Monitor ran a front-page story last June outlining the ink tests and other expert examinations that included an apology to Galloway and to Monitor readers. Later that summer, Galloway threatened to sue the Monitor in Britain, which does not have the same free-press or free-speech protections as American law. The settlement also includes a statement that was read in open court, endorsed by the Monitor, which reiterates that the aspersions the original documents cast on Galloway are unfounded.

Galloway has filed a libel suit against the London-based Daily Telegraph over articles based on an entirely different set of documents, also found in Baghdad last April, that also alleged payments to him by the Hussein government. In recent weeks, an Iraqi newspaper reported on other documents discovered by officials in the Iraqi oil ministry. These documents are said to list profitable concessions under the UN oil-for-food program doled out by the Hussein government to foreigners, including Galloway associates, who provided funding for a charity he ran. Galloway himself has reportedly denied receiving any oil concessions and has said he is unaware that his charity received any proceeds from such deals. None of these documents repeats or offers any evidence of the transactions described in the documents that led to the Monitor article.

The documents obtained by the Monitor were provided by a former Iraqi army general. He has not acknowledged that the documents were forged.