Fresh Galloway Allegations

The U.S. Senate has raised fresh allegations against British MP and Friend of Saddam George Galloway in its investigation of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal.

One of the main allegations raised by the senate sub-committee was that Mr Galloway received oil allocations with the assistance of Fawaz Zureikat. Mr Zureikat, who was chairman of the Mariam Appeal set up by Mr Galloway to help a four-year-old Iraqi girl with leukaemia, has strongly denied making any arrangements linked to oil sales on behalf of the MP. The senate committee's new report accuses Mr Galloway of personally soliciting and being granted eight oil allocations totalling 23 million barrels from the Hussein government between 1999 and 2003. It also says that his estranged wife received £85,000 in connection with one allocation of oil. The committee alleges that at least £252,000 was funnelled to the Mariam Appeal through several allocations.

Of course, none of this would come as a surprise to Christopher Hitchens, who maintains that Galloway has misrepresented his financial ties to the Hussein regime. A close reading of source documents and actual contracts granted by the Iraqi Oil Ministry clearly buttress this argument:

1. We have been informed by our Jordanian friend Mr Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat (full information about him attached appendix no. 1) who is an envoy of Mr George Galloway because he participated with him in all the Mariam Campaign's activities in Jordan and Iraq, the following:(a) The mentioned campaign has achieved its goals on different levels, Arabic, international and local, but it is clear that by conducting this campaign and everything involved in it, he puts his future as a British member of parliament in a circle surrounded by many question marks and doubts. As much as he gained many supporters and friends, he made many enemies at the same time.(b) 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 a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him directly. To implement this Mr Galloway gave him an authorisation (attached) in which he pointed out that his only representative on all matters related to the Mariam Campaign and any other matters related to him is Mr Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat and the two partners have agreed that financial and commercial matters should be done by the last (Zureikat) and his company in co-operation with Mr Galloway's wife Dr Amina Abu Zaid with emphasis that the name of Mr Galloway or his wife should not be mentioned later.

When confronted with Sen. Norm Coleman's renewed accusations, Galloway responded in predictable fashion.

I am demanding prosecution, I am begging for prosecution. I am saying if I have lied under oath in front of the Senate, that's a criminal offence. Charge me and I will head for the airport right now and face them down in court as I faced them down in the Senate room. Because I publicly humiliated this lick-spittle senator Norman Coleman - one of (President George) Bush's right-hand men - in the US Senate in May, this sneak revenge attack has been launched over the last 24 hours.

Since his inexplicably heralded showdown with Coleman, "Gorgeous George" has spent a good chunk of the last five months riding a wave of personal and pecuniary popularity in this country facilitated by the useful idiots of the fanatical Left. He's done book tours, traveled with Jane Fonda, appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time program and done a series of debates with Hitchens. He's become a Cindy Sheehan-like hero of the anti-war crowd because he supposedly "spoke truth to power" back in May. But when it comes to George Galloway, the only truths are that he is a friend and business partner of murderous thugs. Just this past July, Galloway bolstered these credentials when he traveled to Damascus and after declaring his support for the 145 "daily martyrdom operations in Iraq" made this incredible statement:

Syria is about to be subject to a great deal of international pressure because I am sure the report on the killing of Hariri went very negative for Syria and this will go to the Security Council. The Security Council will be asked, I am sure, by the US and France to take action. What action? I don't know. This is the reason for the timing of my visit because in advance of this new pressure on Syria, I want to help rally people to the side of Syria, to defend Syria...They are attempting to pressure Syria not because of bad things but because of good things; that is because Syria is the castle of Arab dignity, because she is refusing to sever ties with the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, because she refuses to transform herself into an American base to kill more Iraqis. These are the reasons for which they want to punish Syria. And we have the reason why we should defend her.

This guy just needs to go away.