Another angle that I came across this morning mooted the notion that people in the Iraqi security services could have used Galloway’s name to siphon off cash themselves – seemingly it’s not uncommon for agents to combine a) giving themselves a career boost by falsely promoting the usefulness of their contacts and cost of the contact with b) lining their own pockets.
Human nature, who’d have thought …
This is what has raised most suspicious eyebrows with the people I’ve spoken with…
The building was first bombed, then set on fire, then thoroughly looted… so it seems a remarkable piece of luck that 1) these files actually survived and 2) they were discovered so easily by the Telegraph journalist.
Apparently they were in a boxfile marked “Britain” or something like that, but “pretty bloody convenient” would seem to sum it up!
It could well be that there is something behind the allegations (I can’t imagine the legal team at the Telegraph would risk publishing something 100% fabricated, particularly given the strength of British libel laws and the fact that Galloway has little option but to sue if he’s to maintain any credibility at all) but the manner in which they have been made public smells does smell decidedly fishy…
December
You should know that this kind of smear campaign is not new in British public life, franky I expect smoenwhat better of MI6, this is so clumsy transparent and incompetant that it really makes the intelligance community look cack handed.
‘The Telegraph’ is a very right wing rag, so much so it is nicknamed ‘The Torygraph’.
I remember some years ago this ‘newspaper’ alleged that a senoir union leader, Mr Arthur Scargill, was recieving payments form the then wolrd bogeyman Colonal Ghadhaffi, he sued for libel and won, it was just a way to damage his reputation and like such campaigns, mud does not alawys wash off completely.
I read the article concerning the ‘discovery’ of these documents in the Torygraph’ and it was completely unbelievable.
The ‘journalist’ claimed he had enetered the Iraqi foreign ministry, which has admitted was pretty much a burnt out shell.
He also admitted that there used to be row upon row of files and documents that had be ‘turned into a fine white ash due to the heat from the fire’.
He mysteriously find three box files, one marked United Kingdom, another marked France and another marked United States.
He opens the United Kindom file which is lined with tigerskin patterned wallpaper and ‘discovers’ the ‘imcriminating’ documents.
Give me a break, one file to reperesent all of Iraqs foreign ministry dealings with each of the nations concerned, a building where literally millions of other documents are destroyed and these few survive ?
BOLLOCKS!
Don’t you imagine that imtelligence officers have already picked through looking for evidence of Iraqs illegal foreign trade dealings ? …and yet they left such a juicy file alone ?
BOLLOCKS!
The ‘evidence’ says that Galloway was paid out of oil-for-food money, this is surprising since this program is actually run from the UNs New York office, why on earth would authorisation and evidence of payments be found here under Iraqi control, when the program itself and its funds were not under Iraqi control ?
It says Galloway covertly met junior Iraqi intelligence officers, huh? Galloway had access to Hussain himself, why the heck would he be dealing with a third rate flunky ?
This is a very nice distraction from the search for those WMD whcih have not yet turned up, it is also a very good way to intimidate anyone who might harbour strong anti-war feelings and might criticise the US and UK for their actions in what is increasingly looking more like an oil war.
The message to all anti war folk is, ‘If you make too much noise then this could happen to you’.
Can you imagine what moderate Arab opinion makes of these democracies ?
It is just the suppression of public dissent we see here.
It does seem like an amazing coincidence, doesn’t it? It would be particularly amazing if Galloway were the only recipient of Saddam’s largesse.
OTOH what if Saddam’s money had been going to numerous westerers? Then, it would be less surprising if evidence about one of them happened to pop up.
I wonder about Congressmen McDermott and Bonior, who went to Iraq right before the war and criticized the US from Baghdad. I also wonder whether any of Saddam’s money inderectly helped to support anti-war rallies.
Now that the Galloway accusation is in the public spotlight, the facts should eventually come out, one way or the other. I’m less optimistic that we will ever learn who else might or might not have taken Saddam’s money.
Incredible. December, did you actually read casdave’s post?
…and when the facts finally do come out, after legal proceedings whihc will take at least a year, and more likely two or three, will you december remember this thread ?
Like I remember what happened to Arthur Scargill and how the truth finally came out eight years after the untrue allegations were made, by the very same ‘newspaper’.
I have a long memory, I also have a vote in the local elections next month, you can be sure I will look at the lying precedents set by UK warmongers, and I shall be directing my vote accordingly.
Around here there were a large number of miners who had allegations of violent behaviour levelled at them during a very heavy industrial dispute, they were sacked as a result of these allegations, but every single one of them went to court and the allegations were proven false, but by then the strike was long over, the mines they worked in had been closed, and they had to take further legal action to recover redundancy money to which they were entitled.(which was actually funded by their own pension fnds surpluses and not by their employers)
I saw the day after day manipulation of the press and the distortions by the BBC. I also remember the inquiries after complaints were made against that bastion of truthful reporting, the BBC, and five years afte that industrial dispute was over, the BBC publicly and formally apologised for serious distorions of events during the miners dispute which had seen, for example, editing of an incident at Orgreave coking works where the police charged unporvoked and on horses, the striking workers, and the striking workers running off. It was edited to show those workers running as if they were attacking the police and then the police charging back, a complete reversal of the real events.
Forgive me if I distrust the lying, spinning illegal and immoral state directed media services in the UK, but then I could go on about how our politicians and media worked together to ensure that we would go to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
I have seen right at first hand how these things work, I am not as gullible as perhaps many anti-war campaigners may seem to you, this is bitter experience.
So when those true facts come out I expect you to acknowledge them, but you won’t because everyone forgets such details, the smear is all that remains in the biased memory of those who have an uncritical mind, unfortunately december he more I read of your posts, the more I discover that you fall into that category, shame really because someimes you have stimulating. provocative arguments, but your views are so fixed that you are unable to bend in the slightest.
Given that you don’t seem to believe people may speak out on political matters unless they’re being bribed to do so, I wonder whose payroll you’re on, December? And do you perhaps have a list of 57 people in Saddam’s pay, right there in your hand?
Jesus Christ.
Daniel
hopefully not double-posting
So what does BBC’s coverage of 20-year old miner strikes in Great Britain have to do with a Telegraph reporter’s claims of finding incriminating documents in current day Iraq? Is there any connection between the two other than they’re both stories covered by the British media? Heck, if you’re going to bring up the past as a precedent, note that Parliament has been concerned with some of Galloway’s past dealings, stating that 'It is unacceptable for any member to be involved in recycling cash between third parties"- the incident in question involving accepting undisclosed money in an attempt to stop deportation proceedings against a Bin Laden supporter. But if you find the Beeb’s and the “Torygraph’s” coverage to be potentially tainted, the Guardian has a roundup here where they note that everything that’s independently verfiable has checked out so far.
I can’t believe that some posters think that it’s suspicious that looters didn’t steal government paperwork.
I think the problem is not that the looters would steal government paperwork, but that it would still be intact in a building where they had run riot.
From a look at the newspaper stands this morning, I think the worst thing that Galloway faces at the moment is trial by media. Accusations about Galloway’s integrity are able to fly around with little evidence to support them. Suing them for Libel might not work, as they just need to say they published it in good faith and they’ll get off, regardless of the truth of the allegations.
Apparently a former Saudi ambassador to the UK used to tape record every meeting he had. He isn’t the ambassador any more, but the Saudi water minister now. Allegedly a certain person is on those tapes asking for payment for stuff.
I don’t usually do ad hominem but since you, december have once again made completely unfounded accusations of both individuals (McDermott and Bonior) and the peace movement (for the umtieth time) i will give it a try.
I claim that you have no longer any credibility whatsoever in making such accusations. Since you have made them already on several occassions without ever being able to back them up.
The peace-movement is unamerican, here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=177228&pagenumber=5
The peace movement is run by stalinists (supporting Beagle), here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=162324
And now: The peace movement is funded by Saddam.
So, eh, december, what’s the deal here? Don’t like the peace movement, huh? 
I have never heard of galloway and have no idea who he is. I have no doubt there are corrupt people on both sides of this issue but that does not in any way discredit the positions they have held when they are held honestly by other people. The positions are not in any way tainted by the fact someone who is corrupt has espoused them.
It was a catchy thread title though, right?
Beagle: Certainly caught my eye, admitted
If this is a set up, it’s a really good set up.
Randy, the visit that McDermott and Bonior made to Baghdad was bizarre. To many Americans, they looked like traitors. The visit helped Saddam and his regime. It probably cost the Democrats several House seats in last November’s election, and perhaps the Georgia Senate election. If McDermott and Bonior didn’t get any of Saddam’s money in exchange for granting him that public relations coup, they should have! They certainly earned it.
I’ve spent my career in the field of finance, where unfortunately bribery is not unheard of. I hate the practice. But that doesn’t mean I should close my eyes to the possibility, when there are suspicious circumstances.
If Saddam paid Galloway hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, it seems unlikely that he would have stopped there. Chances are he paid money to other people who could help him.
If you had been Saddam, and you wanted to pay some people abroad to generate support, who would you try to buy?
Yeah. To that contingent of “Americans” who rail against “political correctness” all the while imposing their own “Patriotic Correctness” that anyone who does not click their heels and say the Pledge of Allegiance (inlcuding “under God”), or who dare to voice reservations about the choices of Right wing presidents are not “real” Americans.
Bonior and Mc Dermott acted like idiots, but accusing them of treason is simply Right wing PC. (None Dare Call it Treason, anyone?)
You have a point, tomndebb, but I didn’t mean to accuse them of treason. I meant to describe the political impact of what they did.
Maybe those who considered their visit to be treason are hypocrites or overly right-wing PC, but they vote. That visit encouraged some people from all over the country to take the trouble to go to the polls and vote Republican.
They looked like stooges. I think it is ridiculous to call elected legislators traitors in this case. They looked stupid, sure. They were duped by the Iraqis, yes. “Traitor” is a criminal charge. Where’s the indictment?
This is what I hate about politics. Period. I generally think that both sides have legitimate gripes about things. I try to use a dialectic approach, look at the peacenik arguments, look at the hawk arguments, pick the best from both, meditate, eat, sleep, eat more, and wild ass guess as best I can.
Right now the peacenik argument that many of us believed before the war (open can, worms) is coming true. Now may not be the best time to start throwing aroung baseless accusations.
I now see that december has retracted the statement. Good show.