Wayne Madsen/Galloway tongue-lashes Coleman

Galloway tongue-lashes Coleman; committee documents show Bush political friends and family paid Oil-for-Food kickbacks to Saddam Hussein

British Member of Parliament George Galloway presented the U.S. Senate with the best tongue lashing since U.S. Army counsel Joseph Welch excoriated Senator Joseph McCarthy over his witch hunt directed at one of Welch's law firm associates who had been a member of the Lawyer's Guild: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Coleman stated that the ex-Iraqi officials were not looking for leniency in describing Iraq's oil deals with foreign officials. However, Coleman failed to state that the chief Iraqi prosecutor for the upcoming trials is Salem Chalabi, the nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, whose oil ministry was reported by the committee to have produced the questionable documents. Salem is also a law partner of Marc Zell, the East Jerusalem-based former law partner of outgoing Pentagon official Douglas Feith, whose former aide, Lawrence A. Franklin, has been indicted for passing classified information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—a major funder of Coleman's political campaigns and multiple trips to Israel—and Israeli embassy officials.

Carl Levin, who once was also accused by neoconservatives of accepting Oil-for-Food money from Saddam Hussein's government, concentrated on the role of Bayoil, a Houston-based company, in evading Iraqi sanctions and profiting from the Oil-for-Food program.

Minority report documents indicate that one of the largest recipients of Bayoil Iraqi oil shipments was Enron, the bankrupt company that served as a virtual slush fund for the political campaigns of George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The following describe the shipments to Enron:




a lot more of the article
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052105Madsen/052105madsen.html

The TRUTH will set you free!

That is unless you are one of the lying scounderals who are accusing others of your own crimes. :spank:

Then the truth will get you 10-20 in the slammer and you can pay back all you stole now. Oh, you can't? OK then you can have one of those cool orange jackets and pick up trash on the freeway until you pay off the balance.

:rofl:

THIS IS AWESOME!!!


:popcorn:

Watching with more excitement than a sci-fi nut at SWIII

One thing that caught my eye in reading the piece was the references to MEMRI:

One "beneficiary list"—supposedly found in the archives of the Iraqi Oil Ministry and translated by the shadowy Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Washington, DC-based group with links to Israel's Likud Party—contained the name Shaker Al-Khafajji, an Iraqi-American businessman who was reported to have given $400,000 to former UN weapons inspector and war critic Scott Ritter to produce a documentary. . . . The charges brought by Coleman's committee largely rehashed the original accusations contained in the MEMRI-laundered documents. . . . According to the Calgary Sun, Canadian Arthur Milholland, the CEO of Calgary-based Oilexco (which allegedly received 9.6 million barrels of oil from Saddam), directly implicated MEMRI in the forgeries of the documents used by the Telegraph and Al Mada (also cited by the Coleman committee). He told the paper, MEMRI "has some motives."

It's unfortunate, but it seems that these attempts to smear Galloway (among others) have Israel's -- or perhaps more accurately Likud's -- fingerprints all over them. Here's some background information on MEMRI from RightWeb:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/memri.php

MEMRI’s slogan, “Bridging the Language Gap Between the Middle East and the West,” does not convey the center’s stridently Zionist and anti-Arab political bias. . . . As an indirect result of the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the subsequent “war on terrorism” by the Bush administration, MEMRI has gained public prominence as a source of news and analysis about the Muslim world. Its translated articles and commentary by its own staff are routinely cited in national media in the United States, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Analysis by MEMRI staff and officers is frequently published by right-wing and neoconservative media outlets such as National Review, Fox News, Commentary, and the Weekly Standard.

<snip>

To understand the political mission, it is helpful to examine the politics and origins of its cofounders Yigal Carmon and Meyrav Wurmser. Carmon is a reserve colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces, having served in the IDF/Intelligence Branch from 1968 to 1988. In that capacity, Carmon, who was born in Romania, was Acting Hear of the Civil Administration in the West Bank from 1977 to 1982. He served as counterterrorism adviser to premiers Shamir and Menachem Begin from 1988 to 1993. In 1991 and 1992 Carmon was a senior member of the Israeli Delegation to peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington.

Wurmser, an Israeli-born analyst of Middle East affairs, received her Ph.D. from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. where she wrote on Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement. According to Arab Media Watch, Jabotinsky “brokered the marriage between Zionism and fascism.” Wurmser, who has taught at Johns Hopkins University and the United States Naval Academy, and her husband David Wurmser are central figures in the right-wing’s web of Middle East policy institutes.

<snip>

MEMRI, which describes itself as “objective and independent,” has gained a reputation for cherry-picking the most virulent, anti-Israel and anti-U.S. reports and commentary from the Arab media. A former CIA counterintelligence official, Vincent Cannistraro, said that “they {MEMRI} are selective and act as propagandists for their political point of view, which is the extreme-right of Likud…. They simply don't present the whole picture.”

Isn't MT Zion what Israel named their most holy spot in "the Promised Land" they were heading to when they wandered 40 years in the desert?

So the Zionists argue the idea that God gave them the land and they shouldn't have to share or compromise at all. It's far side of the political spectrum keeps knocking down proposals of peace.

It's a tough call, I mean what would we do if the Native Americans decided to just take THEIR land back and boot us out?

My history isn't the greatest and geography is even harder, but who WAS there first?

disappear. ( **** emphasis mine **** THE PROGRAM DIDN'T EXIST ON THE DATES STATED FOR THE FORGED DOCUMENTS IN THE Chrisian Science Monitor)

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Galloway also criticized Coleman for quoting an unnamed source without finding out if the allegations were true. He asked Coleman, "Who is this senior former official? Don't I or the committee or the public have a right to know?" In a dramatic moment, Galloway thundered, "You have nothing on me, senator, other than my name on lists from your puppet government in Iraq." Galloway added, "Knowing how you treat prisoners, I'm not sure how much credibility can be placed on the statements of prisoners." He said, "Iraq never paid a cent to me or to Mariam's Appeal."

Galloway said that one of the Coleman committee's most serious mistakes was stating that its alleged newly discovered documents covered a different period of time than the Daily Telegraph 2001 documents. He pointed out that the Telegraph documents covered 2001 and that they dated identically to the documents in the committee's report. ********Galloway stated that the Christian Science Monitor published documents from 1992 and 1993 alleging that Galloway accepted Iraqi oil money but that these were unmasked as forgeries. Although the 1992 and 1993 documents were said to deal with the Oil-for-Food program, Galloway emphasized that the program did not exist then.*********** However, Galloway said that neocon websites and papers were "all cock-a-hoot over the documents," later proven to be forgeries.

Galloway said the case for war was "a pack of lies" and that the Coleman committee hearings was the "mother of all smoke screens" to divert attention away from the real Oil-for-Food scandal. He said that Halliburton had stolen Iraq's money and that $8 billion of Iraq's wealth had been stolen since the war. In addition, Galloway pointed out that $800 million in cash was given out in Iraq by U.S. military commanders. Galloway told the committee that the "real sanctions busters were your own companies and politicians."

Keith Olberman. Someone has to bite and make it go mainstream.

Randi Rhodes is going to Washington DC and I was able to send in an email, but because of all the freepers and such I couldn't get on the blog.

I'll keep going. Think I will give the STRIB a heads up.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052105Madsen/052105madsen.html

<clip>

At the same time Enron Chairman Kenneth (“Kenny Boy”) Lay was involved in Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force secret dealings and when he was stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of George W. Bush and Cheney’s political campaign, he also managed to illegally stick $206,757 into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts.

The Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal also involves one of the Bush children—Dorothy “Doro” Bush Koch, sister of George W. Bush and married to Bobby Koch, reportedly a cousin in the oil industry Koch family, the
owner of Koch Industries, which is also one of Bush’s largest political donors. The minority committee report indicates that Koch Industries was also a major recipient of illegal Iraqi oil and a huge source of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein:


.....

The total sum in kickbacks from George W. Bush’s cousin-in-laws to Saddam’s bank accounts: $1,294,620.

George Galloway was correct when he called the Coleman Committee the “mother of all smoke screens.” Major political contributors and friends of Bush not only paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein but
personally profited from sanctions-busting with Iraq.

Those involved in the scheme included individuals who date back to the Reagan/Bush 41 “cluster bombs and biological and chemical weapons-for-oil” scandal of the 1980s. Galloway is correct when he stated that there is enough evidence on Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair and their neocon advisers to park them in prison cells in The Hague for an awfully long time.

WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND THOSE SECRET COMMITTEE DOCUMENTS BE OPENED AND EXAMINED IN LIGHT OF NEW EVIDENCE THAT CHENEY USED THOSE MEETINGS TO ILLEGALLY DEFRAUD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!

WOW, how about a new pettition to MOVE-ON Pac?

could our officials really be lying?

I'm finding the FLORIDA connections in all this MOST INTERESTING.

What was it DEEP THROAT said? Follow the MONEY??? Everything OLD, apparently, is NEW again!!!!!

And this bit is just too fucking RICH to ignore:

The Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal also involves one of the Bush children—Dorothy "Doro" Bush Koch, sister of George W. Bush and married to Bobby Koch, reportedly a cousin in the oil industry Koch family, the owner of Koch Industries, which is also one of Bush's largest political donors. The minority committee report indicates that Koch Industries was also a major recipient of illegal Iraqi oil and a huge source of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein:

to see their asses handed to them after all the evil they have done in America's name.

I'm so giddy, but also deeply broken hearted.

These BASTARDS! You know? Who the HELL did they think they were doing all this stuff?

"Who is this senior former official? Don't I or the committee or the public have a right to know?" In a dramatic moment, Galloway thundered, "You have nothing on me, senator, other than my name on lists from your puppet government in Iraq." Galloway added, "Knowing how you treat prisoners, I'm not sure how much credibility can be placed on the statements of prisoners." He said, "Iraq never paid a cent to me or to Mariam's Appeal."

Galloway said the case for war was "a pack of lies" and that the Coleman committee hearings was the "mother of all smoke screens" to divert attention away from the real Oil-for-Food scandal. He said that Halliburton had stolen Iraq's money and that $8 billion of Iraq's wealth had been stolen since the war. In addition, Galloway pointed out that $800 million in cash was given out in Iraq by U.S. military commanders. Galloway told the committee that the "real sanctions busters were your own companies and politicians."

Galloway was correct in criticizing the Coleman committee for not concentrating on U.S. violations of Iraqi sanctions and pay-offs to Saddam in the Oil-for-Food program. The U.S. oil companies involved in the sanctions busting have long-standing connections to the Bush family and their largest corporate benefactors.

Galloway said the case for war was "a pack of lies" and that the Coleman committee hearings was the "mother of all smoke screens" to divert attention away from the real Oil-for-Food scandal. He said that Halliburton had stolen Iraq's money and that $8 billion of Iraq's wealth had been stolen since the war. In addition, Galloway pointed out that $800 million in cash was given out in Iraq by U.S. military commanders. Galloway told the committee that the "real sanctions busters were your own companies and politicians."

Galloway said the case for war was "a pack of lies" and that the Coleman committee hearings was the "mother of all smoke screens" to divert attention away from the real Oil-for-Food scandal. He said that Halliburton had stolen Iraq's money and that $8 billion of Iraq's wealth had been stolen since the war. In addition, Galloway pointed out that $800 million in cash was given out in Iraq by U.S. military commanders. Galloway told the committee that the "real sanctions busters were your own companies and politicians."

Have the balls to take BushCo down.

BY the way, I think Galloway had an accidental factual error. If memory serves me correctly the $800 million and the $8.8 billion numbers are reversed.

http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/feeds/ap/2005/01/30/ap1791607.html

Associated Press
Audit: $9 Billion Unaccounted for in Iraq
01.30.2005, 07:41 PM

The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.

The U.S. officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an audit by a special U.S. inspector general


I can't find an article on the 800 million Galloway refers to, but with the press so constricted, how can anyone be certain of their numbers?

Counterpunch says $1 billion stolen... but supposedly recovered?

July 30, 2003
The Hidden Cost of the Iraq War

http://www.counterpunch.org/barel07302003.html

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To cover the civilian expenses, the U.S. is using Saddam Hussein's frozen funds in U.S. banks, estimated at around $10 billion. One billion dollars was stolen from Iraqi banks and around $950 million of it has been recovered and is being used by the civilian administration. Only some $350 billion remains in the central bank and that is being used to cover current expenses. According to Bremer's assessment, Iraq will need around $1.5 billion a year for the next five years just to restore electrical supply to all citizens of the country.

Time to get in my slickers and an umbrella

think I already know the answer.

Fawaz Zureikat, if you can believe it, is still involved with the United States in Iraq. A firm run by him has the exclusive rights to sell highly sensitive military encryption technologies made by a US firm, Middle East Advanced Semi-conductors, to the Iraqi military, police and government. This contract had to be authorized by the U. S. government under strict export control rules. If he is such a bad guy, how did he meet the extremely strict American security tests to be involved in sales of such secret encryption technology?

As we dig further into this scandal, it appears that the attack by Coleman was an ill-advised attempt to hide the real scandals - real scandals involving supporters of the Republican Party and even Dick Cheney and George Bush themselves - behind an attack on a British politician who Coleman thought couldn't, or wouldn't, defend himself. These scandals go back to illegal support for Saddam in the 1980's, and tie into the Republican nexus of corruption involving Iran-Contra, BNL, BCCI, and more recent scandals involving illegal support for Saddam in the 1990's.

Coleman's timing, right after the revelations in the Downing Street Memo that the attack was inevitable (as was the divvying up of the oil fields planned by Cheney and American oil interests), and right after the revelations that the main players in the oil-for-food scandal were none other than big American oil companies connected to the highest levels of the Republican Party, is so bad it's almost comic. When you add the involvement of Chalabi and MEMRI (an arm of the Likudniks in Israel) in the defaming of Galloway you have pretty much a summary of all the co-conspirators in the war crimes against the people of Iraq.

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/

Hitchens’ journalistic stock-in-trade includes, very prominently, the bullying of interviewees. But before he was properly out of his corner, Galloway flattened him with a rhetorical uppercut to the jaw:

"You’re a drink sodden former-Trotskyist popinjay," Mr Galloway informed him. "Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink."

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE505B.html