UK's Galloway arrives in US to clear name on Iraq

WASHINGTON - Maverick British lawmaker George Galloway has arrived in Washington and said he was determined to prove the "absurdity" of allegations that he benefited from the United Nations' oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

Galloway is set to answer questions at a hearing of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which released documents it said showed ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gave Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the now-defunct UN oil-for-food humanitarian programme.

A radical kicked out of the Labour party for his fervent opposition to the Iraq war and personal attacks on Prime Minister Tony Blair, Galloway said he was looking forward to telling his side of the story but had low expectations.

"I have no expectation of justice from a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neocon (President) George Bush who is pro-war," Galloway told Reuters on his arrival in the United States.

"I come not as the accused but as the accuser," he added.

Galloway was strongly critical of the committee's investigation into his activities and said he was never contacted or asked a single question about the allegations.

"I'm not going there to change the minds of the committee, but to appeal to public opinion and to show just how absurd this report is," he said. "Justice George Bush style ... is what I expect from the right-wing hawks in Washington."

Asked whether he had prepared a statement to present at the hearing, Galloway said he had formulated some thoughts but declined to say what these were.

Other witnesses set to give testimony at the same hearing include Thomas Schweich, chief of staff of the US Mission to the United Nations, and Robert Werner, director of the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The UN oil-for-food programme, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was aimed at easing the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts, but the programme has been dogged by allegations of massive fraud and charges Saddam used it to buy influence in the West.

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

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

Running as an independent, the outspoken Scot narrowly defeated a Blair loyalist in Britain's May 5 election for what had been considered a safe Labour seat representing east London.

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.

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

- REUTERS