Oh my…imagine the photo-ops and sound-bytes this is bound to provide!
[quote]Galloway to be suspended from Commons over Iraq
From The Sunday Times, July 15, 2007
GEORGE GALLOWAY, the MP who campaigned against the Iraq war, is to be suspended from parliament over his links to the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The parliamentary standards watchdog will rule this week that Galloway failed properly to declare his links to a charitable appeal partially funded from money made by selling Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein, according to a source close to the inquiry. The one-month suspension for Galloway, often referred to as “Gorgeous George”, is one of the most severe given to an MP.
Galloway, who was expelled from Labour, is now an MP for the Respect party. He may also be asked to apologise to the Commons for his behaviour but will launch a robust defence of his conduct. He denies any wrongdoing.
The UN oil-for-food programme was set up to allow Saddam to sell Iraqi oil to buy humanitarian supplies, but he corruptly awarded oil contracts to politicians and businessmen around the world.more at link timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/p … 076249.ece[/quote]
Go gettum Georgie…and remember the words that many politicians are wont to utter in times like this…“An indictment is NOT a conviction!”
Enough Occupation: 40th Anniversary of the Occupation of large parts of Palestine
Demonstration & Rally, London
9th June 2007
How’d you know that Lurkky?..!..Good to see that you’ve memorized the Israeli bar code prefix…729
TC…I don’t think they’ll get rid of Gorgeous George that easily…
George Galloway, Respect Party MP
[quote]Its not just enough of 40 years of occupation, it is enough of talking about 40 years of occupation. Action speaks louder than worlds and we must now move on to the phase of action…
[/quote]
You can download the rest of his speech here (MP3): http://www.inminds.co.uk/download.php?id=34.dwn
One more time for BFM: Keep an eye on the goods bar code: Israel’s country prefix is 729
.
Clearly a ringing endorsement fo rthe boycott Israel crowd.
[quote]Can someone explain how a duly elected MP can be “suspended” from parliament? What on earth does that mean?[/quote] I’ve always had my suspicions of the Parilimentary systems with their weak powers of incumbancy.
It is certainly weak that George gets suspended with no proof over the alleged oil for food and yet Tony Blair finished his work at his own pace even though proven to have used falsified evidence toward his ultimate goal in starting a war in Iraq. The word Irony seems a bit lame in this case.
Okay then, let us hang that sycophantic little deputy lapdawg, John Howard, for the Australian Wheat Board kickbacks too! I’ll fetch the noose!
[quote]Oil for food scandal
Previously a low profile organisation, the AWB made headlines in late 2005 when it was alleged that it had knowingly paid kickbacks to the Iraq Government, defrauding the UN and violating sanctions. At the insistence of the Iraq government of dictator Saddam Hussein, the AWB agreed to pay ‘transportation fees’ of around $AUD 290 million. At the same time, the price per ton paid from the UN Oil-for-Food program was raised by an amount slightly above the ‘transportation fees’.
The government-sanctioned Cole Inquiry into the company’s role in the scandal has been completed and was tabled by Attorney General Philip Ruddock on the 27th of November 2006.[2] Australia’s government has distanced itself from the payments to Saddam Hussein’s regime, given Australia’s contribution to military action against Hussein in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Andrew Lindberg resigned as managing director on 9 February 2006 and from the board of directors on 22 February 2006 under intense public and media pressure.
The Oil-for-Food program UN resolution 986 was passed on 1995-04-14 and the program ran from late 1996 until 2003-03-20.
On 11 July 2006, North American farmers are claiming $1 billion in damages from AWB at Washington DC, alleging the Australian wheat exporter used bribery and other corrupt activities to corner grain markets. The growers are also claiming that AWB used the same techniques to secure grain sales in other markets in Asia and other countries in the Middle East.[/quote]
If Galloway is guilty why haven’t the Americans or the British charged him and why did he successfully sue the Sunday Telgraph?
What’s this…? Haven’t we been here before…?
[b][quote]
Christian Science Monitor Apologizes
By Cliff Kincaid | July 9, 2003[/b]
The U.S. Government isn’t alone in getting burned by the use of forged Iraq documents. The Christian Science Monitor has now apologized to suspended British Member of Parliament George Galloway for using forged documents to charge that he was in the pay of the Saddam Hussein regime. The paper declared, “On April 25, 2003, this newspaper ran a story about documents obtained in Iraq that alleged Saddam Hussein’s regime had paid a British member of Parliament, George Galloway, $10 million over 11 years to promote its interests in the West.”
The Monitor, after an extensive investigation, had determined the papers in questions were “almost certainly forgeries.” But that doesn’t get Galloway off the hook entirely. The London Daily Telegraph used another document, whose authenticity has not been challenged, to make its charge that Galloway had accepted money from the former Iraqi regime. The Telegraph says it was offered the Monitor document and rejected it.
[quote]
GALLOWAY: Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
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. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
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; 1600 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. [/quote]
Evil Galloway using his supposedly ill gotten gains for humanitarian causes!! Off with his head!
Also, your post supports mine. He did take the money. He was supposed to declare the source of ALL funds. He did not. He is being suspended for a month. Eventually, he will be caught.
But to do as the other poster did and defend him and criticize Blair is just too rich.
[quote]Galloway faces Commons ban over ‘illicit’ Iraq cash
By IAN DRURY, Last updated at 21:05pm on 15th July 2007
MP George Galloway is set to be suspended from Parliament over his links to a charity bankrolled by illicit deals involving Saddam Hussein’s regime.
He will be barred from the Commons for one month by Parliament’s standards watchdog for failing properly to declare his connections with the Mariam Appeal, it was reported.
Mr Galloway, who became an MP for his own Respect party after being expelled from Labour, may also be asked to apologise for his behaviour by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Philip Mawer.
Last month a damning report by the Charity Commission concluded that the Mariam Appeal, established by Mr Galloway in 1998 to deliver medical aid to Iraq and arrange treatment outside Iraq for sick Iraqi children, [i]took ‘significant’ amounts of money improperly from Iraq.[/i]
It said Mr Galloway, a trustee, may have known the appeal - which campaigned against sanctions on Iraq - received £230,000 of aid money that had been diverted from the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The charity watchdog’s report, published after a 16-month inquiry, found that Mr Galloway and fellow trustees broke the law by taking the cash, but it only gave him a slap on the wrist because the money was all spent on humanitarian causes.
The Commons ban would be one of the most severe given to an MP. Mr Galloway, who was ridiculed after appearing on Celebrity Big Brother, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has claimed he is the victim of a smear campaign.
He called last month’s Charity Commission findings ‘sloppy, misleading and partial’. He could not be contacted yesterday.
The Mariam Appeal has never filed any accounts and the parliamentary authorities have been unable to account for some expenditure.
The MP was expelled from Labour in October 2003 after his outspoken comments on the Iraq war. He accused Tony Blair and President Bush of acting ‘like wolves’ in invading Iraq. The Daily Mail[/quote]
BroonAdvertising[/quote]
well…“edited” is quoting the Guardian…where’s a page 3 girl when ya need one?
added edit:
OOPS! please dis-regard that “sh*t for brains” comment it is probably not within the posting rules. So please do not read that…perhaps substitute…“jwcampbell” instead…much the same and more accurate.
No proof? There was proof that he took money from the Oil for Food program. That is why he is being suspended. He did not declare that money.
In your own feverish mind, these may be the facts but the Butler and Duelfer reports concluded the exact opposite.
The irony is that you personally used the word “lame” to describe anything other than your last post…[/quote]
Yes, yes, we saw the forged documents that were “proof” that George Galloway was guilty during his meeting with the senate in the United Cowboys of America, and we also saw the forged documents from Niger that Tony used for his case to go to war which he later blamed on CIA intelligence and then somehow got the French roped into things too. It seems we outsource British intelligence these days, or perhaps that’s because we don’t have any left, anyway an awfully convenient get out Tony found and the song goes on…The Iraq war was based on intelligence that proved that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction wasn’t it? Or is that just my bad memory?
In your own feverish mind, these may be the facts but the Butler and Duelfer reports concluded the exact opposite.[/quote]
So asserting that Tony Blair really didn’t know what he was doing when he helped start a war which has lasted longer than WWII is supposed to be some sort of exoneration?
That sounds more like something to lose sleep over.
Instead though they’re going to put him in charge of the crime scene by making him Mideast envoy. Supposedly because of the most excellent judgment he’s exhibited so far. Sweet.
[quote=“fred smith”]The Telegraph is appealing I believe.
Also, your post supports mine. He did take the money. He was supposed to declare the source of ALL funds. He did not. He is being suspended for a month. Eventually, he will be caught.
But to do as the other poster did and defend him and criticize Blair is just too rich.[/quote]
Fred, kindly prove your statement of “he did take the money”. If you are unable to prove it without resorting to allegations, which are not proof, then why should he declare money that he hasnt received.
What? These are the SAME documents that are now seeing him suspended from the Parliament for a month.
You do not know what you are talking about. The British never based their findings that Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger on these documents. They were provided by Italian intelligence to the US where they were quickly determined to be forgeries. The British intelligence stands by its finding and this was the finding that Bush quoted in his state of the union address. Plame’s husband Wilson also dealt with the matter of these “forged” documents but they were never the basis of any findings and/or conclusions about the finding that Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger. Wilson was found to have lied repeatedly. Both the Butler and Duelfer reports concluded that the claim that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake from Niger had validity.
You are talking out of your ass. Blair never learned any such thing from the CIA.
You are confusing the Italian secret service documents which were very early on determined to be forgeries. The Italians blamed the French for using it as a trojan horse to discredit the effort to remove Saddam. Nothing to do with any of this.
What the hell are you talking about? No wonder people like you end up defending Galloway and criticizing Blair. I think that there is a real problem with intelligence here but the problem is in your head.
No. The original assessment was that he had not accounted for too much and that we were no longer going to take the risk. There were some who said finding and proving he had wmds would be a slam dunk. They were wrong. Even Saddam’s generals however and EVERY Western intelligence agency believed that he had them. It turned out that this was a pose to scare his people, keep the confidence of his generals and threaten outsiders like the US and Iran to keep them from exploiting his weakness. Both the Duelfer and Butler reports concluded, however, that he would have started his wmd programs when the sanctions regime had collapsed. They pointed to his confidence that he could control the events as well as his statements that he would have been better to have invaded Kuwait with nuclear weapons.
You said it. The only correct thing you have in all of this. Otherwise, feel free to go and do a search and back up your “assessments.” You are wrong.
