Galloway accuses senators of 'smear'

[cal04]

George Galloway will accuse US senators of conducting a smear campaign against him after they alleged he was given millions of dollars in bribes by Saddam Hussein's regime.

Mr Galloway, who won a shock election victory in the Bethnal Green and Bow seat in east London 10 days ago, is due to confront the senate committee in person at a hearing on Tuesday. He is expected to accuse the permanent sub-committee on investigations of deliberate bias and of inaccuracies in its report.

Mr Galloway said yesterday he was particularly angry that the committee had published its allegations without giving him any chance to study its evidence or interviewing him first. He will also accuse the senators of being manipulated by US intelligence, since its main Iraqi witnesses, including former Iraqi ministers, are all in US custody.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=638540

[Cha]

1. I was so curious as to what

"US Senators" those were?

[Psephos]

4. Norm Coleman and Sander Levin are the names at the top of the report

[Cha]

5. So..a repub and

a Democrat. Wow..I thought it would be coming from the repubs!

[Psephos]

8. I know, bit of a surprise, isn't it? n/t

[chlamor]

2. Galloway needs to

come to the US with about a thousand copies of the Downing Street Memo/Document in hand and just demand the Congress begin impeachment proceedings. Go on the offensive.

"F**K you George Bush"-Standing Ovation from the WORLD

[Cha]

6. Outstanding idea!

I don't know how this got so out of hand that George Galloway is coming to DC!

And the article said he won in a shocking election..I guess they expected him to lose.

[Maccagirl]

3. We'll see how much play Judy Woof-Woof gives this

Sounds on the surface like the Senators pissed off the wrong guy. Just pray that it doesn't go down the memory hole.

[cal04]

7. Kangaroo Court ,"neo-conservative" conspiracy

Mr Galloway will try to turn the tables on the committee. He will accuse Norm Coleman, the ambitious Republican senator for Minnesota and chair of the Senate's Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations, and his colleagues of bias by failing to investigate US complicity in sanctions-busting oil deals in Iraq.

Mr Coleman, he will contend, has presided over a "kangaroo court" where the chief suspects - himself and the French former minister Charles Pasqua - were refused the right to examine and challenge the evidence against them before being judged guilty in last week's report.

He will also allege that the committee has been "fed" its material by US intelligence, using questionable sources. Its chief witnesses, such as the former Iraqi vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, are in US custody. One other is unnamed, presumably under US protection. And, he will add, none of the documents has been independently examined. He suspects that they are part of a "neo-conservative" conspiracy against him.

"There's no doubt Coleman is part of that neo-con assault on the United Nations and on those who he perceives have betrayed the United States over Iraq and the war. I don't know much about the other members of the committee, but if you look at his website, the chairman is driving it," Mr Galloway said.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=638539