[Vision2020] Scrutinizing Iraq Scandals

[Ted Moffett]

        Wednesday, May 18, 2005 

        Scrutinizing Iraq Scandals: * Policy * Profiteering 

   George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament who has been
accused by Sen. Norm Coleman of profiting from the UN oil-for-food
program, yesterday addressed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, which is chaired by Coleman.

   Said Galloway: "I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number
of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld
met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target
those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions,
suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him
to try and persuade him to let Dr. Hans Blix and the United Nations
weapons inspectors back into the country....

   "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....

   "Have a look at the real oil-for-food scandal. Have a look at ...
the first 14 months [during the time of the Coalition Provisional
Authority] 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."

[Video of Galloway's remarks is available at:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2005/05/17/VI2005051700710.html>;
a transcript is available at:
<http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0517-35.htm>.]

Institute for Public Accuracy 
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org 
___________________________________________________ 

V2020 Post by Ted Moffett