Galloway Gnaws on Senate Skulls

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Reverend Blair

Council Member
Apr 3, 2004
1,238
1
38
Winnipeg
This is really good to see:
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong - and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies," Mr Galloway told Sen Coleman.

He insisted he had been a longer-standing opponent of Saddam Hussein than anyone questioning him.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when the British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas," he told the subcommittee.

"I have a better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do."
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The Guardian
 
W

Wetcoast40

Electoral Member
Feb 21, 2005
159
0
16
Lesser Vancouver
The best defence is a good offence! If nothing else, Galloway will out-talk the slow thinkers in the U.S. Senate. However, I don't think his hands are clean. The Brits think he's up to his neck in the oil/food diversion scam.
 
R

Reverend Blair

Council Member
Apr 3, 2004
1,238
1
38
Winnipeg
RE: Galloway Gnaws on Sen

Idon't think he is. This is the second time they've tried to crucify him on the same evidence , and he sued their asses off the last time. This attack is little more official, but it's the same people behind it in the end.
 
W

Walrus

Nominee Member
Mar 20, 2005
67
0
6
Victoria
Regardless of whether or not Galloway was involved in the scandal, he outlines the utter hypocricy of the United States Senate - especially those Republican Senators on the commitee - which tries to point the finger of corruption at the UN, countries like France and Russia, and indiviuals like Khofi Annan and Galloway, while ignoring the greater evidence of American involvement and the collusion of the US Administration in ignoring the violations by American Companies
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=639335
In sheer terms of money however, the third report, issued by the Democratic minority on the Committee alone, is even more shocking. It alleges that the US government turned a blind eye as Bayoil, a Texas oil company, imported Iraqi oil and paid $37m of kickbacks to the Saddam regime. Also, as a member of the Security Council, Washington did nothing to prevent Saddam sellling oil worth a claimed $8bn, to Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Turkey, in violation of sanctions.

"On the one hand, the United States was at the UN trying to stop Iraq from imposing illegal surcharges on oil-for-food contacts," Carl Levin, the panel's senior Democrat said as the hearing began yesterday. "On the other hand, the US ignored red flags that some US companies might be paying those same illegal surcharges." America, he said, "should look in the mirror."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1485649,00.html
A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.
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The Jordanian oil purchases were shipped in the weeks before the war, out of the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya, which was operating without UN approval or surveillance.

Investigators found correspondence showing that Odin Marine Inc, the US company chartering the seven huge tankers which picked up the oil at Khor al-Amaya, repeatedly sought and received approval from US military and civilian officials that the ships would not be confiscated by US Navy vessels in the Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF) enforcing the embargo.

Odin was reassured by a state department official that the US "was aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action".

The company's vice president, David Young, told investigators that a US naval officer at MIF told him that he "had no objections" to the shipments. "He said that he was sorry he could not say anything more. I told him I completely understood and did not expect him to say anything more," Mr Young said.
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Makes me wonder why our ships (mine included) and aircraft were over in the Gulf enforcing the sanctions against Iraq when the US Government was directing their vessels to give free passage to American vessels violating the embargo :evil:
 
R

Reverend Blair

Council Member
Apr 3, 2004
1,238
1
38
Winnipeg
RE: Galloway Gnaws on Sen

It was beautiful to watch. Galloway has the advantage of not having to be diplomatic with these guys. They can't intimidate him and he knows that his constituents back him.
 
S

Scape

Electoral Member
Nov 12, 2004
169
0
16
The best part was 21 minutes into the 47 minutes if testimony...

Now, senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq, which killed a million Iraqis, most of them children. Most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis, With the misfortune to be born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq.

And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies. I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we're in today.

Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth. Have a look at the real oil- for-food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months, when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and the other American corporations that stole Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer. Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal, breaking in the newspapers today. Revealed in the (INAUDIBLE) testimony in this committee, that the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians; the real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own government.
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R

Reverend Blair

Council Member
Apr 3, 2004
1,238
1
38
Winnipeg
RE: Galloway Gnaws on Sen

He's always had backbone, he didn't suddenly grow it. There are still a few like that around, mostly on the left.
 
mrmom2

mrmom2

Senate Member
Mar 8, 2005
5,380
6
38
Kamloops BC
My point Rev was politicians with back bone either lose them suddenly or they mysteriously commit suicide :wink:
 
Jo Canadian

Jo Canadian

Council Member
Mar 15, 2005
2,488
1
38
PEI...for now
 
D

Derry McKinney

Electoral Member
May 21, 2005
545
0
16
The Owl Farm
RE: Galloway Gnaws on Sen

The fact remains that Galloway won a lawsuit because a British paper went after him on the same non-evidence that the Senate was using in their witch hunt.
 
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