Great Briton*
Oh man, George Galloway needs to give our Democratic representatives in DC a seminar on how to respond to right wing attacks. The Scotsman (* - that wouldn't have made such a clever title, now would it?) fired at Republican Senators with both barrels in their attempts to link him to the Iraq/UN oil-for-food scandal, just like he promised.
According to the BBC's Matthew Davis, he rubbished committee chairman Norm Coleman's dossier of evidence and stared him in the eye:
"Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," the MP declared to Norm Coleman (R-Hack)
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong."
"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."
Paging all Democrats in Washington DC:
Read this testimony and use it daily!
Read this testimony and use it daily!
And if they don't want to go so far away for advice on debating, maybe they can check with our own Mike Merrifield, he's got that same fiestiness.
posted by Zappatero @ 9:16 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
But did you look at Coleman's face when he was attacking Galloway's "credibility" after the testimony? He was caught flat-footed - he really believed that he had the goods on Galloway.
Mr. Galloway said he met Mr. Hussein only twice, which he said was the same number of times the Iraqi dictator had met with U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Then, he added, his voice dripping with sarcasm, that while Mr. Rumsfeld had visited Mr. Hussein to sell him guns, "I met with him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war."
Galloway acknowledged that businessman Fawad Zaraiqat, a close friend of his, was active in several businesses in Iraq, including oil.
Zaraiqat was the chairman of Mariam's Appeal, a charity named for a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukemia, which Galloway and others set up to raise money for medical relief in Iraq.
Zaraiqat and his company, Middle East Advanced Semiconductor, are listed alongside Galloway and Mariam's Appeal on Iraqi state oil company documents, confirming valuable oil allocations.
Galloway acknowledged that Zaraiqat had given the charity $686,000 but said he did not know where the money had come from and did not care.
Frankly, the points he raised are valid whether he got the oil allocations or not. If he used them for a health-care-providing charity, Coleman should have known that before calling Galloway to testify. Makes you wonder whether the people briefing Coleman actually set him up for this, or whether it's SNAFU for an administration where being "reality-based" is pejorative.
Due diligence: the material on Galloway's testimony was copied or paraphrased from the
Toronto Globe and Mail article on the testimony and the face-off.
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