UK politician faces questions from senators

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(17 May 2005) SHOTLIST 1. Senators including committee chair Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman at hearing 2. British Member of Parliament George Galloway swearing oath before committee 3. Galloway sits down 4. SOUNDBITE (English) George Galloway, British Member of Parliament "Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader. And neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf." 5. Back view of Galloway testifying 6. SOUNDBITE (English) George Galloway, British Member of Parliament "I have met him (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, sufferings and war. And on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to allow Dr Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his." 7. Galloway testifying 8. SOUNDBITE (English) George Galloway, British Member of Parliament "Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth. Have a look at the real oil for food scandal. Have a look at the first 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when 8.8 billion dollars of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and the other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money but the money of the American taxpayer. Have a look at the oil that you didn't even metre, that you are shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look at the 800 million dollars you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee that the biggest sanctions busters were not me, or Russian politicians or French politicians, the real sanction busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own government." 9. Galloway testifying 10. SOUNDBITE (English) George Galloway, British Member of Parliament "So I opposed this programme with all my heart. Not because Saddam was getting kickbacks from it and I don't know when it's alleged these kickbacks started. Not because some individuals were getting rich with Iraq, under it. But because it was a murderous policy of killing huge numbers of Iraqis. That is what troubles me. That is what troubles me." 11. Galloway and officials standing up STORYLINE British member of parliament George Galloway has vehemently rejected a U.S. Senate subcommittee's claim that Saddam Hussein awarded him lucrative allocations under the UN oil-for-food programme. The subcommittee, chaired by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, claimed that Galloway allegedly funnelled allocations through a fund he established in 1998 to help a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia and received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003. Having flown from the United Kingdom to address the claims personally, Galloway said: "I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf." He accused Coleman of sullying his name with the accusations. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/5848c584fd785879ef0217f6c046272d