George Galloway & US Senate

[limerickman]

George Galloway appeared at the US Senate today to give his rebuttal to the "evidence" gather by the US Senate Committe in to the Oil for Food program.

Essentially the Senate accused GG of getting barrels from SH for GG's political opposition to the Oil for Food porgram and the UN sanctions, imposed on Iraq
during the 1990's.

The evidence cited by the US Senate was a re-hash of the documents produced by the Christian Science Monitor and the documents used by the Sunday Telegragh to libel GG.
GG won a libel case against the ST in the London High Court and proved that the documents were fraudulent and the CSM publicly apologised to GG for basing it's report on fraudulent documents.
This did not prevent the US Senate from re-hashing these urban myths to try to implicate GG.

GG faced down the committee today with a clinical dissection of their allegations.
He told that chairman Norm Coleman that not only was his committees report
wrong, but that he (GG) had been found guilty on the basis of documents proven to fraudulent !
GG made this committee look very incompetent today.

This US committee also relied on the testimony of SH's deputy, who is currently held in Abu Ghuraib, to qualify it's accusation that GG was paid in oil by SH.
GG made the point that any testimony from someone residing in Abu Ghuraib couldn't be relied upon given what we all know happened (happens ?) there.
GG entered a full dossier of his speeches opposing SH, per Hansard, in to the
record of the Committee hearings.

Needless to say GG wiped the floor with the committee.

For the record, can any one of our American people here tell us who
Mr.Levin is ?
I am interested in his name and background.
He is a member of the US Senate Committee hearing conducting this enquiry.
Thanks.

 

[darkboong]

Needless to say GG wiped the floor with the committee.

I saw the GG video on the BBC website, pretty good stuff. That video didn't show the Circus^WCommittee speaking though, I would have liked to have seen what their reaction was. They looked as though they really didn't want to be there from the brief pictures of their faces, in fact they looked so ****** off that I might hazard a guess that they were forced to be there...

For the record, can any one of our American people here tell us who
Mr.Levin is ?
I am interested in his name and background.
He is a member of the US Senate Committee hearing conducting this enquiry.
Thanks.

Me too FWIW.

 

[darkboong]

And in answer to that : Is Carl Levin the guy you are asking about Limerickman ?

http://www.senate.gov/~levin/

He is in direct opposition to Dubya's Social Security "Reforms". Maybe he's been sent to deal with Galloway as some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.

His opening statement is rather interesting :
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroom/release.cfm?id=237716

A few choice quotes :

A U.S. company called Bayoil (USA), headquartered in Houston, Texas, was smack in the middle of it all. When other oil companies around the world were cutting back on business with Iraq due to Saddam’s surcharge demands, Bayoil increased its business. During the 2-year period in which surcharges were mandatory to get Iraqi oil, Bayoil became the largest single buyer of Iraqi oil for the U.S. market. Altogether, Bayoil brought in over 200 million barrels to the United States. My staff was able to trace 102 of the U.S. cargoes Bayoil brought here, and found that the surcharges paid on those cargoes, according to internal Iraqi records, totaled $37 million.

And then we come to this :

Bayoil illustrates the point. This chart summarizes what happened with Bayoil. In 2001, the U.N. became suspicious that Bayoil and a few other companies were using various tactics to make room for surcharge payments. The U.N.’s oil experts asked Bayoil for specific cargo information, but Bayoil refused to provide it. In August 2001, the U.N. appealed to the U.S. State Department for help, and the State Department asked OFAC to obtain the information. After hearing nothing for four months, the U.N. sent another request for help in January 2002. Eight months after the initial inquiry, in April 2002, OFAC finally wrote a letter to Bayoil asking for information about its licensed activity in Iraq, without requesting the information wanted by the U.N. and without directing Bayoil to answer U.N. questions. Despite its booming Iraqi oil import business, Bayoil told OFAC that it no longer conducted licensed activity in Iraq. OFAC made no followup inquiry and never even bothered to send Bayoil’s response to the State Department or the United Nations.

Please note how the UN was raising flags and the US Government was blithely ignoring their warnings and requests for co-operation ?

The illegal surcharges from Saddam Hussein’s control of oil allocations netted Iraq about $228 million; Iraq’s direct oil sales to its neighboring countries, Jordan, Turkey and Syria, generated 40 times as much illicit income – over $8 billion. [See bar chart.] These direct oil sales were in violation of U.N. sanctions and the Oil for Food program we helped draft at the United Nations, yet the United States and others looked the other way, simply taking note of them.

Funny how the US Government has suddenly found it's scruples now that it has direct control of Iraq's oil. Here is a specific example of sanction busting that the US directly co-operated in :

Over several weeks in February and March 2003, Iraq loaded 7.7 million barrels of oil onto 7 seagoing oil tankers at the port of Khor al-Amaya in southern Iraq. Khor al-Amaya was not authorized as a place for ships to load oil under the Oil for Food program. The oil loaded onto the 7 ships was sold to the Government of Jordan, which paid Iraq $53 million, wired to bank accounts under the control of the Hussein regime.

The 7 massive oil tankers that carried this oil docked at Khor al-Amaya in plain view of the Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF), which was then under U.S. command. Internal ship communications show that the 7 ship captains were directed to contact the U.S. naval officer at MIF before loading any oil and give him this message: “We are loading crude oil from the terminal at Khawr Amaya for Millenium [the Jordanian company acting for Jordan], do you have any objection?” After obtaining a response of “no objection,” the ships were directed to go to the port, fill up with oil, and leave with their cargo. They then traveled the length of the Persian Gulf, with the MIF’s full knowledge and acquiescence.

It gets even worse :

When word of the first of the Khor al-Amaya oil shipment hit the press and an outcry arose about this apparent blatant violation of U.N. sanctions, a U.S. company involved with chartering the ships for the Jordanian government called U.S. authorities to make sure it was not violating U.S. or U.N. sanctions or hurting U.S. foreign policy. The company even offered to turn over the oil in the ships’ possession to the MIF, if asked. A State Department official responded that the United States “was aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action.” The U.S. company was reassured.

So not only was the Bush Regime aware of American companies directly involved in sanctions busting on a huge scale, but they explicitly *granted* permission for it to occur. Keep that in mind the next time someone rants on about UN corruption in the OFP. How the hell was the UN meant to police the sanctions when the nations enforcing the sanctions (ie: the US) were actively breaking them ? The heart of the corruption lies within Washington.

There is a pattern here of erratic and inconsistent U.S. enforcement of sanctions on Iraq. On the one hand, the United States was at the U.N. trying to stop Iraq from imposing illegal surcharges on Oil for Food contracts. On the other hand, the U.S. ignored red flags that some U.S. companies might be paying those same illegal surcharges.

By and large it looks like Levin ain't pulling any punches, good on him, that statement has put right a lot of wrongs. I'll bet it never gets aired in primetime mainstream US media, prove me wrong someone and I'll buy you a beer when/if you visit Blighty.

 

[limerickman]

And in answer to that : Is Carl Levin the guy you are asking about Limerickman ?

http://www.senate.gov/~levin/

He is in direct opposition to Dubya's Social Security "Reforms". Maybe he's been sent to deal with Galloway as some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.

The guy called Levin who spoke today, was little greyhaired bloke with a sallow complexion.

 

[darkboong]

The guy called Levin who spoke today, was little greyhaired bloke with a sallow complexion.

I probably made the right guess then judging by that statement.

 

[limerickman]

And in answer to that : Is Carl Levin the guy you are asking about Limerickman ?

http://www.senate.gov/~levin/

He is in direct opposition to Dubya's Social Security "Reforms". Maybe he's been sent to deal with Galloway as some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.

His opening statement is rather interesting :
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroom/release.cfm?id=237716

A few choice quotes :



And then we come to this :


Please note how the UN was raising flags and the US Government was blithely ignoring their warnings and requests for co-operation ?



Funny how the US Government has suddenly found it's scruples now that it has direct control of Iraq's oil. Here is a specific example of sanction busting that the US directly co-operated in :



It gets even worse :



So not only was the Bush Regime aware of American companies directly involved in sanctions busting on a huge scale, but they explicitly *granted* permission for it to occur. Keep that in mind the next time someone rants on about UN corruption in the OFP. How the hell was the UN meant to police the sanctions when the nations enforcing the sanctions (ie: the US) were actively breaking them ? The heart of the corruption lies within Washington.



By and large it looks like Levin ain't pulling any punches, good on him, that statement has put right a lot of wrongs. I'll bet it never gets aired in primetime mainstream US media, prove me wrong someone and I'll buy you a beer when/if you visit Blighty.

Yep that is the guy who asked GG some questions today.
That's the guy you've linked in your message.

 

[MountainPro]

Galloway claims victory over Senate committee


"We blew them away,"

"From the emails and feedback we've had from all over the world it is true undoubtedly that there was a worldwide audience out there waiting for someone to speak the truth to power,"

"I did a bit of sanction busting," he said, brandishing a cigar. "I smoked a Havana cigar just like this one. I smoked it inside the Capitol building, I even blew the smoke at the White House."


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050518/325/fjbiw.html

 

[limerickman]

Galloway claims victory over Senate committee


"We blew them away,"

"From the emails and feedback we've had from all over the world it is true undoubtedly that there was a worldwide audience out there waiting for someone to speak the truth to power,"

"I did a bit of sanction busting," he said, brandishing a cigar. "I smoked a Havana cigar just like this one. I smoked it inside the Capitol building, I even blew the smoke at the White House."


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050518/325/fjbiw.html

I saw GG saying this on Newsnight last night after returning from Washington
at a RESPECT party meeting.
Superb stuff.

 

[Carrera]

There are a lot of nasty folks lurking around the White House and my guess is they will be out to get GG big time. I think the accusations were made after Blair was humiliated in the London election and Galloway rubbed it in. This information probably drifted to the Senate and the first attempt was made to try and accuse Galloway of misconduct.
There are many people who also believe Dr David Kelly may have been a victim of a similar witch hunt and Kelly was less able to handle the pressure.
Then you have Abu Hamza. In my opinion real terrorists don't stand in the middle of London and preach anti-U.S. diatribes. In Hamza's case, of course, it was easier to dig around and try and find something to pin on him but the truth is they wanted to shut him up.
George Galloway has already had serious threats made against him by Islamic extremists as well. He's surrounded by very dangerous enemies on all sides. I seem to recall Muhammad Ali being tracked by Hoover and Klan Members during his Vietnam stand-off and Malcolm X was bumped off.

Galloway claims victory over Senate committee


"We blew them away,"

"From the emails and feedback we've had from all over the world it is true undoubtedly that there was a worldwide audience out there waiting for someone to speak the truth to power,"

"I did a bit of sanction busting," he said, brandishing a cigar. "I smoked a Havana cigar just like this one. I smoked it inside the Capitol building, I even blew the smoke at the White House."


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050518/325/fjbiw.html