So an US Senate committee has accused of having received “allocations” of oil under the “oil-for-food” programme:
The US report concludes: “The evidence obtained by the sub-committee, including Hussein-era documents from the ministry of oil and testimony from senior Hussein officials, shows that Iraq granted George Galloway allocations for millions of barrels of oil under the oil-for-food programme.
“Moreover, some evidence indicates that Galloway appeared to use a charity for children’s leukaemia to
conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation.”
As the blogger known as Sonic said as well, you’d think this much oil would leave some trace:
[…] If Galloway was allocated “millions of barrels of oil under the oil-for-food programme” there seems
to me there would be clear evidence of it (transaction records, invoices etc) and if there was were is it?
But it all seems to be a
mishash of earlier accusations, including accusations Galloway already won a libel suit over:
A spokesman for the Telegraph said: “The committee appears to be confusing our documents with a set of alleged receipts that emerged in Baghdad some days after our story appeared. These purported to record direct payments to Mr Galloway in the early 1990s. They were offered to the Daily Telegraph but, as they were clearly crude forgeries, we declined to publish them.”
The committee, which of course had not contacted Galloway before making the accusations, has now deigned to receive him, to which Galloway has responded with his usual charm:
The committee said it would be “pleased” for Mr Galloway to appear at a hearing in Washington on 17 May.
The MP accepted, declaring he would take “them on in their own lions’ den”.
He told the BBC: “I’ll be Daniel and I’ll be triumphant”.
In all, this whole farce smells like a slightly ill timed “october surprise”. Oona King must be pretty miffed this kerfuffle didn’t erupt a week earlier, eh?