Accused British lawmaker calls oil-for-food probe smoke screen

WASHINGTON — A British lawmaker forcefully denied allegations in a Senate hearing yesterday that he received rights to buy millions of barrels of Iraqi oil at a discount from Saddam Hussein's government.

George Galloway, a member of Parliament who vehemently opposes the war in Iraq, used his appearance before a Senate subcommittee to challenge the veracity of the Bush administration's case for going to war.

He also unleashed a personal attack against panel chairman, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., calling his investigation the "mother of all smoke screens" designed to "divert attention from the crimes that you supported" by endorsing President Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

OLIVIER DOULIERY / ABACA PRESS George Galloway speaks to the media after testifying yesterday in Washington, D.C. The British lawmaker denied Saddam Hussein gave him lucrative allocations under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

"Senator, I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf," said Galloway, dispensing with the deference usually reserved for senators. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf."

Galloway is one of several foreign politicians the Senate subcommittee on investigations claimed last week received options to buy discounted Iraqi oil in return for helping Saddam's government evade U.N. sanctions. The holder could sell the options to oil traders for a profit. Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and Russian parliamentarian Vladimir Zhirinovsky also were among those named. They have denied wrongdoing.

But Galloway was the only one to travel to Washington to defend himself before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee. He testified under oath and without immunity, but with harsh language that shook up the usually staid hearing room.

He has been an outspoken opponent of both Iraq wars and of the U.N. sanctions, which he said were killing innocent Iraqis. He was expelled from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party after urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq and was re-elected to Parliament this month as a representative of his own anti-Iraq war Respect Party.

Galloway described Coleman as a "pro-war, neocon hawk and the lickspittle of George W. Bush" who, he said, sought revenge against anyone who did not support the invasion of Iraq.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," he said, accusing the former prosecutor of not giving him a chance to respond to the charges before circulating the committee's report. "I am here today, but last week you already found me guilty."

Last week, Coleman released a report charging that Galloway received oil allocations of 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2004 and had a Jordanian associate, Fawaz Zureikat, sell the oil and funnel the revenues through a charity.

The report also said that former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz confirmed that Galloway was on their list of friends to be rewarded.

JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., left, speaks with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., before yesterday's hearing begins.

The panel is one of several congressional committees investigating allegations that Saddam manipulated the $64 billion oil-for-food program to get kickbacks and build international opposition to U.N. sanctions against Iraq set up after the 1991 Gulf War. The program was created as an exception to the sanctions, allowing Saddam to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and other humanitarian items.

Galloway denied trading oil or having anyone trade it on his behalf and questioned the validity of any information extracted from a prisoner facing war-crimes charges, "knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners," he said.

"Now, you have nothing on me, senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad," he told Coleman.

"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," he said.

Coleman, who did not respond to the criticism, stuck to questions about Galloway's dealings in Iraq and quizzed him over Iraqi Oil Ministry documents the senator said showed he received oil allocations.

"Senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you, in fact, received oil allocations and that the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid," said Coleman, urging Galloway to provide evidence to the contrary.

Coleman's subcommittee claimed that Galloway funneled allocations through the Mariam Appeal — a fund he established in 1998 to help a 4-year-old Iraqi girl with leukemia — and received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003. Coleman also alleged that Galloway was linked to kickbacks to Saddam, saying the Iraqi leader received more than $300,000 in surcharges on allocations involving Galloway.

The Senate subcommittee has not presented any bank records showing that Galloway traded in Iraqi oil or paid kickbacks to the government.

Galloway vehemently rejected the accusations and said that Coleman's panel based some of its accusations on the same fake documents used by The Daily Telegraph newspaper, which he sued for libel last year and won a $1.4 million judgment. The committee says it used different documents.

Coleman pressed Galloway on his relationship with Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat. Galloway described Zureikat as the second-largest contributor to the Mariam Appeal, while congressional investigators consider him Galloway's intermediary in receiving oil proceeds.

Asked if he knew that Zureikat was involved in oil deals with Iraq in 2001, Galloway said he knew Zureikat was doing extensive business in Iraq, but he didn't know the details.

When Coleman reacted skeptically, Galloway told him, "There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you."

Galloway also said it was "beyond the realm of the ridiculous" that he would give $300,000 in kickbacks to Saddam.

After the hearing, Coleman said, "nothing was said today that at all discounted the veracity, the reliability of those documents that were affirmed by senior Iraqi officials."

Coleman and Sen. Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said it was "simply not credible" that Galloway, who described himself as a "dear friend" of Aziz — one of three Iraqi officials, according to Coleman, who selected the contract recipients — did not know that his partner and the man who funded his campaign against the war was making oil deals with Saddam.

"If in fact he lied to the committee, there will have to be consequences," Coleman said.

Material from The Washington Post, Reuters, The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.