Galloway vs. US Senate

[Looger]

this galloway thing is HUGE everywhere but here, it seems.

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4557279.stm:

"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."

"Senator [Coleman], 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."

"I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf."

good background:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4540401.stm

The scandal emerged in early 2004, after an Iraqi newspaper published a list of about 270 people including UN officials, politicians and companies it alleged may have profited from the sale of Iraqi oil during the OFF programme. Mr Galloway and Mr Pasqua were on that list.

the accusers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4555497.stm

The committee's investigation into the UN's oil-for-food programme, and Iraq's alleged allocations of oil to politicians in the UK, France, Russia and elsewhere, has brought it into the spotlight.

For the leading Democrat on the committee, Carl Levin, the main focus has been follow-the-money investigations, including wide-ranging inquiries into money laundering, Enron and most recently tax evasion.

Among other ongoing projects are investigations into nuclear terrorism and port safety; the provision of credit to low earners; the abuse of first-class air tickets at the defence department; music piracy, and the Sars virus.

man, those guys are taking on the serious stuff all right.

sorry for the single-source links but BBC really has the goods on the galloway stuff.

i guess finally they picked a target with teeth, like a python i heard aboot that mistook a guinea pig for a feeder mouse.

[Looger]

less reputable source but a good rundown.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0518-28.htm

includes quotes like "drool-on-his-tie fool" that were lifted clean from others, but...

[TheCommodoreAfro]

The part that got me is how he managed to defend their accusation, then turn it right around into something against them while not even dropping his scouser scrowl at Coleman or peeking at notes.

One of the best public speakers I have had the pleasure of watching. Can you imagine him in the debates with George Bush? I think he'd come close to reducing him to tears.

[Looger]

for me these rants say it all:

"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 one 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 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 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 [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to [French] President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the antiwar movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are 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 fourteen months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first fourteen months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only 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 earlier 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."

[HOZ]

Originally posted by Looger@May 20 2005, 11:41 PM
for me these rants say it all:

"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 one 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 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 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 [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to [French] President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the antiwar movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are 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 fourteen months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first fourteen months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only 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 earlier 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."

Back to this load of dung. 1 million Iraqis didn't die because of sanctions. As usual with the anti-everything crowd...the bigger the number the more believed the lie. Kurds were also under sanctions yet their standard of living rose. Under Saddam the Iraqi standard dropped because he was selling off medical suplies on the black market to pay for his 7-8 palaces rather than give it to his people. Those children died because Saddam knew he had plenty of 'useful Idiots' in the West that would eat up any lie he and his lackies spewed.

All Saddam had to do was to submit to unrestricted inspection and his country wouldhave been openned up to trade and such.

USE OF SANCTIONS UNDER CHAPTER VII

Implementation of Oil-for-Food: A Chronology

THE PAROCHIAL MEDIA

MS: No, he's a loathsome person who basically was Saddam Hussein's shill in the United Kingdom. He adores Saddam Hussein. He used to take him boxes of Quality Street Toffees, which is an English delicacy. He used to take them over to the presidential palace and hand them to him, and tell him what a great man he was. He's a loathsome creature, but you know the thing is, when you watch that Senate inquiry, and you see essentially a clash of two parliamentary cultures, because you've got these pompous bores, who are the United States Senators, and then you've got this kind of scrappy little grass regions street fighter, who's used to the British Parliament, where you just pitch in and whack your opponents whenever you can. And in fairness to him, I found that actually a lot more exciting to watch than some of these somnolent confirmation inquiries we've had in recent weeks. And I wish sometimes the United States Senate was a bit more like the British House of Commons.

HH: Well, they're busy smearing our judicial nominations in the media and the Democratic party, and lifting up the reputation of the scoundrel. And he is a scoundrel, isn't he?

MS: Oh, absolutely. And he's done quite dispicable things, like use this poor little sick girl, that he formed a charity over, and the charity got millions of pounds, and the million of pounds, by all accounts, just seems to have turned into a slush fund for his political activites. It didn't go to help cure sick little girls or anything. He's an absolutely dispicable person. But at the same time, what he was up against, in that Senate inquiry, was a kind of very pompous, ponderous, form of inquiry that, in fact, you know, when you see the United States Senate with Elizabeth Bumiller from the New York Times, that is a great kind of...that's the Super Bowl of pompousness and portentousness.