Galloway agrees to answer corruption claims in Senate
By Jenny Booth, Times Online 
http://images.thetimes.co.uk/images/trans.gif \* MERGEFORMATINETMay 12, 2005
George Galloway tonight agreed to go to America to give evidence to a Senate committee over allegations that he received lucrative oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime.
The US Senate committee today published a report based on Iraqi Government documents and interviews with Iraqi officials suggesting that Mr Galloway was secretly awarded vouchers for up to 20 million of barrels of oil between 2002 and 2003. 
The report also suggested that he may have used his Mariam Appeal charity to conceal payments. 
Mr Galloway hit back strongly at those claims today. The idea that the most scrutinised political figure in Britain was moonlighting as an oil trading billionaire ... it’s patently absurd and I’m very angry at the airtime you are giving this absurd investigation,  he told the BBC television Breakfast programme.
He claimed that he wrote to the committee 11 months ago asking to give evidence but had heard nothing: They did not ask me a single question, they did not write to me, they have not spoken to me and they know nothing about me.
Tonight the row escalated as a spokesman for the US Senate committee flatly denied Mr Galloway's claim. He said at no time did Mr Galloway contact the investigation, by any means including but not limited to telephone, fax, e-mail, letter, Morse code or carrier pigeon.
Norm Coleman, the committee chairman, said that Mr Galloway would be welcome to give evidence at the committee's next sitting on May 17. That day's hearing has the title: Oil for Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.
The hearing will begin promptly at 9.30am and there will be a witness chair and microphone available for Mr Galloway's use, said Mr Coleman.
Mr Galloway has accepted the challenge. He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: I’ll be there, and I’ll be taking them on in their own lions’ den and I’ll be Daniel and I’ll be triumphant.
The furore erupted after the Senate committee published its latest findings from its inquiry into the discredited United Nations Oil-for-Food programme, under which Iraq was allowed to sell a limited amount of oil under UN auspices, despite international sanctions on the country, in order to buy food and medicines from abroad.
Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former Vice-President of Iraq, told Senate investigators last month that Mr Galloway had been granted the oil allocations because of his supportive opinions about Iraq, and because he wanted to lift sanctions against the country. 
The flamboyant former Labour MP was ousted from the party over his outspoken opposition to the invasion of Iraq, and re-elected to Parliament last week for the Respect political party which he founded on an anti-war ticket. He overturned a 10,000 Labour majority to win the seat of Bethnal Green & Bow, where 40 per cent of voters are Muslim
Another Saddam-era official told American Treasury Department officials in 2003 that a British MP, identified as Mr Galloway, benefited tremendously from the illegal trade of oil by Iraq. 
Despite Galloway’s denials, the evidence obtained by the sub-committee, including Hussein-era documents from the Ministry of Oil and testimony from senior Hussein officials, shows that Iraq granted George Galloway allocations for millions of barrels of oil under the Oil-for-Food programme, today's committee report says. 
Moreover, some evidence indicates that Galloway appeared to use a charity for children’s leukaemia to conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation. 
In December, Mr Galloway won £150,000 in damages and £1.2 million in legal costs in a libel action against The Daily Telegraph for suggesting that he was an agent of Saddam Hussein. The newspaper based its reporting on documents that it said were found in the burnt-out Foreign Ministry in Baghdad shortly after the war. It is appealing against the verdict. 
The staff report by the Senate Permanent Sub-Committee of Investigations emphasised that its findings were based on documents that had no relation to the seemingly forged documents used in the Daily Telegraph piece, noting that the panel was relying on Iraqi Oil Ministry documents from 2001.
The Daily Telegraph documents reportedly included allegations that Galloway was on the payroll of the Hussein regime, receiving a salary or direct payments, it said. In contrast, the evidence examined by the sub-committee indicates that Galloway was granted oil allocations that would have to be monetised through complex oil transactions. 
Mr Galloway is allegedly one of hundreds of politicians and other prominent figures in many countries to whom Iraq is said to have awarded oil allocations, which could be sold to oil traders for up to 30 cents a barrel. The Senate report tracks four of the six oil allocations totalling 20 million barrels allegedly given to Mr Galloway between 2000 and 2003, potentially worth more than £3 million. 
One transaction in 2001 was described in a letter by the Iraqi state oil marketing organisation as having been signed with Aredio Petroleum Company (Fawaz Zuraiqat — Mariam’s Appeal). The report said: This document indicates that Galloway may have used the charitable organisation to conceal payments from the oil allocation he had received from the Hussein regime. 
The appeal was the charity Mr Galloway founded to help Mariam Hamze, a four-year-old Iraqi leukaemia victim, to receive treatment in Britain after the first Gulf war, and which later began lobbying against UN sanctions on Iraq. Mr Zuraiqat was chairman of the Mariam Appeal. 
Mr Galloway said: It is well-known that Mr Zuraiqat traded with Iraq, but he did not do so on my behalf. I have not received a penny piece or any oil voucher from Iraq, directly or indirectly.
Mr Zuraiqat issued a statement through Mr Galloway's party press office, denying that he siphoned money or benefits to Mr Galloway.
Tony Blair said today that there were no plans for a British investigation into the allegations against Mr Galloway.