Saddam screwed the U.N. out of 21 billion

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

CNN Article

 

I closed the browser and don't feel like going back for it, so just click on the link to read up on all of it. I'm sure this is just more fuel to the "We hate U.N." fire at TSM, not that I am judging it one way or the other. I thought it was interesting.

[teke184 0]

Technically he didn't screw the UN out of all of that money...

 

Who do you think he paid half of it to?

[Guest SideFXs]

George Galloway, a British member of Parliament, received 19 million barrels of oil, a $90.5 million profit. A vocal critic of the Iraq war, Galloway denied any involvement to ABCNEWS earlier this year.

 

France was the second-largest beneficiary, with tens of millions of barrels awarded to Patrick Maugein, a close political associate and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac.

 

The following are the names of some of those who received Iraqi oil contracts:

 

Russia

The Companies of the Russian Communist Party: 137 million

The Companies of the Liberal Democratic Party: 79.8 million

The Russian Committee for Solidarity with Iraq: 6.5 million and 12.5 million (2 separate contracts)

Head of the Russian Presidential Cabinet: 90 million

The Russian Orthodox Church: 5 million

 

France

Charles Pasqua, former minister of interior: 12 million

Trafigura (Patrick Maugein), businessman: 25 million

Ibex: 47.2 million

Bernard Merimee, former French ambassador to the United Nations: 3 million

Michel Grimard, founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club: 17.1 million

Bernard Merimee, former French ambassador to the United Nations: 3 million

Michel Grimard, founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club: 17.1 million

 

Syria

Firas Mostafa Tlass, son of Syria's defense minister: 6 million

 

Spain

Ali Ballout, Lebanese journalist: 8.8 million

 

Canada

Arthur Millholland, president and CEO of Oilexco: 9.5 million

 

Italy

Father Benjamin, a French Catholic priest who arranged a meeting between the pope and Tariq Aziz: 4.5 million

Roberto Frimigoni: 24.5 million

 

United Kingdom

George Galloway, member of Parliament: 19 million

Mujaheddin Khalq: 36.5 million

 

Turkey

Zeynel Abidin Erdem: more than 27 million

Lotfy Doghan: more than 11 million

 

Egypt

Khaled Abdel Nasser: 16.5 million

Emad Al Galda, businessman and Parliament member: 14 million

 

Palestinian Territories

The Palestinian Liberation Organization: 4 million

Abu Al Abbas: 11.5 million

 

Ukraine

The Social Democratic Party: 8.5 million

The Communist Party: 6 million

The Socialist Party: 2 million

The FTD oil company: 2 million

 

Now that's a lot of political clout to influence the U.N.

[Guest SideFXs]

And many Iraqi children suffered because the food was rotten.

[Vanhalen 0]

Just a quick note, that George Galloway is not a major or even mior figure in politics at all, hes a backbencher(someone who sits on the backbenches of Parliament and has no influence, unless the lot of backbenchers rebel against the government on a vote) and is currently taking a newspaper to court over these claims in the UK

[Vanhalen 0]

Found this on the matter, its on mediaguardian.co.uk although you have to register to see it.

 

George Galloway, the Independent MP expelled by the Labour party, yesterday took on the Daily Telegraph for what he called an "outrageous blizzard" of defamatory articles alleging that he had taken bribes from Saddam Hussein.

 

It was an allegation, he told the high court, that was "a dagger, a sword, that went through my political heart".

 

In lacerating exchanges with the paper's counsel, James Price QC, he emphatically rejected that he had asked Iraq for covert funding for his highly publicised campaign against sanctions, and also personally benefited to the tune of £375,000 a year.

 

"If I had solicited money from the Iraqi regime I would have been a fool," he said. "If the money had somehow gone into my pocket I would have been a knave, a thief and a fool."

 

Mr Justice Eady, who is sitting without a jury, was told how the libel case arose out of the rubble of the Iraqi foreign ministry. In the dusty chaos of the ruined building, Telegraph reporter David Blair found a pile of boxes. In one, marked "Britain", he discovered a number of documents referring to Mr Galloway.

 

One was purportedly from the head of the Iraqi intelligence service to Saddam in January 2000. It outlined Mr Galloway's personal request for confidential support for his Mariam campaign, the appeal he set up to help a young Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia and which then turned into a general campaign against the sanctions regime.

 

"It is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and exceptional commercial opportunities to provide him with a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him," it said.

 

Mr Galloway, it went on, had already obtained three million barrels of oil every six months from the oil-for-food programme. "His share would be only between 10 and 15 cents per barrel."

 

The find ended up over 13 pages of two issues of the Daily Telegraph in April last year with the first splash headline reading: "Galloway was in Saddam's pay, say secret Iraqi documents."

 

After the Telegraph stories, the parliamentary commissioner for standards launched an investigation, currently on hold, into the allegations.

 

In court yesterday, Mr Galloway, 50, who was expelled from the Labour party in October last year for urging British troops not to fight in Iraq, persisted in his claim that the documents "may be forged, may be doctored, but are in any case wrong and false". But he conceded that their authenticity was not an issue in the case as the Telegraph was not seeking to say its story was true.

 

The Telegraph defence centres on the so-called "Reynolds qualified privilege defence". The paper argues that the documents were of intense public interest, that they should have been published and that Mr Galloway was given ample opportunity to respond.

 

Mr Galloway claimed that a 35-minute telephone call from one of the paper's journalists, simply setting out the gist of the documents, was not enough for him to counter the published imputations of per sonal enrichment. His denials were "singled out in the editorials in particular for ribaldry as though they are ridiculous".

 

An average reader, he said, would have concluded that here was a corrupt man chomping on fat cigars in his £250,000 villa in Portugal. And, he added, "it's an £80,000 cottage on a 100% mortgage".

 

In cross examination, Mr Galloway pitted his sharp political wit against Mr Price's sinuous questioning. "I may not be as educated as you," the MP said during one complicated exchange, "but I can understand the English language." Mr Price caused gales of laughter when he replied: "Let me show you the benefit of what my education brings."

 

In one of the liveliest clashes, Mr Galloway objected to Mr Price's remark that documents "suggest and amount to strong evidence" that he was receiving money from his campaign and asking for more.

 

Mr Galloway replied: "If it's strong evidence, why aren't you pleading justification?"

 

Mr Price: "Because we have not suggested, or sought to say, that the documents are true. We merely say we have found them."

 

Mr Galloway: "You've just said they are strong evidence."

 

Mr Price: "They are."

 

Mr Galloway: "Then why aren't you pleading that they are true?"

 

Mr Price: "Because that's not what the Telegraph said. They said they were genuine and should be investigated."

 

Mr Galloway: "A blind man in a hurry might have concluded that from the coverage over those two days. Virtually everyone else in the country and the world concluded something quite different - that you were saying they were true but have not had the guts to plead that in this case."

 

Mr Price: "Do you not accept there was something to answer in those documents?"

 

Mr Galloway: "As a matter of fact I don't and I don't know many people who did."

 

The case continues.