Appearing before the US senate investigations sub-committee examining sanctions-busting oil deals in Iraq before the war, George Galloway, Respect MP, delivered what CNN called a "blistering attack on senators rarely heard or seen on Capitol Hill".
He entered the hearing room with guns blazing, telling journalists his inquisitors were "crazed", "pro-war", "lickspittles" of the president, and predicting he would turn the tables on them. "I want to put these people on trial. This group of neo-cons is involved in the mother of smokescreens," he said.
That was the common theme in a feat of bare-knuckled rhetoric not often witnessed by the senators, who are accustomed to considerably more reverence for their positions.
Mr. Galloway deflected every charge against him and flung it back at the Bush administration and the US congress.
Speaking to Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican committee chairman who has taken the lead in making allegations against him, Mr Galloway said, "Senator, I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf," he declared, in language that deliberately echoed that of Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunt conducted half a century ago just metres from the chamber used for yesterday's hearing.
"I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf," he said.
Mr. Galloway denied the committee's claim that he had met Saddam many times, claiming there had only been two such meetings - and that the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had met the then Iraqi president the same number of times, to sell arms, Mr Galloway 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."
In the hearing, however, the senators struggled to pin Mr Galloway down with Iraqi oil sales documents with his name on them.
"What counts is not the names on the paper; what counts is where is the money, senator?" Mr Galloway said. "Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money?
"The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them here today."
Mr Galloway used anti-war rhetoric far more raw than most politicians are accustomed to in America, where shared patriotism normally trumps outrage.
He said that 100,000 people had paid with their lives for false assumptions on Iraq, "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".
Senator Coleman said Mr Galloway wasn't a credible witness, and if it was found he'd been dishonest, there would be consequences.
Read more at the Guardian
Mr. Galloway denies the charges and so far it seems all the Senate Committee have is a document with his signature that some say is forged.
Two years ago Galloway was alleged to have received $10,000,000 in payoffs over an 11-year period. Later the documents were shown to be forgeries, and retractions were made.
Is this what they call a kangeroo court? Are George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard going to stand before a committee anywhere ever?
Today I am loving me some George Galloway. I will say that I don't love him all the time. He is decidedly not pro-choice and I hold this against him. But, on the issue of Iraq I'm with him.
Watch the video at the BBC and see just how credible Mr. Galloway was. Wow!
Audio only in MP3 format
Join the discussion at Pourquoi Pas
|
