Maverick British MP heads to US to clear name over Iraq report

George Galloway

LONDON - Maverick British parliamentarian George Galloway flies to the United States today to counter allegations made against him that Saddam Hussein awarded him the right to buy oil.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations last week released documents that it said showed Saddam personally granted Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the now-defunct United Nations oil-for-food humanitarian programme.

"The committee came to its conclusions without any questions or contact being made with me," Galloway told Reuters.

"It is a monstrous abuse of natural justice."

Galloway, a radical kicked out from the Labour party for his fervent opposition to the Iraq war, said he was looking forward to putting his side of the story across.
"I am going to put them on trial, the villains of the piece - the US government and those politicians who support it," he said in a telephone interview.

"I leave for Washington today and go before the committee on Tuesday."

Galloway, who was a vocal critic of UN sanctions against Iraq, met Saddam several times during visits in the 1990s.

The outspoken Scot was elected MP in the previously Labour safe east London parliamentary seat of Bethnal Green and Bow in the May 5 election after he narrowly beat the sitting Labour MP Oona King.

The victory was thanks in part to the Muslim vote turning to his Respect party because of an unhappiness in the Islamic community about the war in Iraq.

The 96-page Senate report, initiated to examine fraud in the UN oil-for-food programme, also said Charles Pasqua, the former French interior minister who is now a French senator, got vouchers for 11 million barrels.

Under the programme Iraq could grant vouchers that could be used to either buy oil or sold to trading companies.

Both Galloway and Pasqua have denied the allegations, which have surfaced earlier, but with less documentation.

As a senator Pasqua, who is a close ally of French President Jacques Chirac, is immune from prosecution in France.

- REUTERS