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I was in Iraq on day alleged in memos, admits Galloway
George "Who has threatened to sue the Telegraph" Galloway confirmed for the first time yesterday that he was in Iraq on the day that documents found by The Telegraph allege he met an Iraqi intelligence officer there to discuss "continuous financial support". The suspended Labour MP also admitted that he was "not yet" in a position to disprove the documents, which he claimed were forgeries and which were discovered in the looted foreign ministry in Baghdad. The papers purport to show that Mr Galloway received money from Saddam Hussein's regime - a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year.One of the documents was a memorandum suggesting that on Boxing Day 1999 Mr Galloway met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Baghdad and laid out his demands for a larger slice of the revenue from the sale of three million barrels of oil every six months. It also purported to show him as asking for "exceptional" commercial opportunities. Saddam Hussein's office rejected these alleged requests for more money, explaining that they were unaffordable. Mr Galloway originally maintained that he spent one Christmas in Iraq but could not be sure which one. When The Telegraph first published the story earlier this year the MP was at his holiday home in Portugal. He claimed he could not verify where he was on Boxing Day 1999 because he did not have his passport with him for that year. He also said that if he discovered from his own records that he was not in Iraq at Christmas that year this newspaper "will come down in flames". Heh Yesterday, however, in an interview with the Radio 4 programme On The Ropes, he said: "I was in Iraq on Boxing Day of 1999 and I spent Christmas Day with Tariq Aziz." But he added: "If I had spent all day with the second most important man in Iraq, why, the next day, would I meet a junior intelligence officer who has to write a memo to his boss, who has to write a memo to his boss, asking for financial support? If I had wanted financial support from Iraq I would have asked Tariq Aziz on Christmas Day." Guess there was more paperwork than you had hoped for. Or perhaps Tariq wasn't in the Xmas spirit you anticipated. Mr Galloway also said that experts had already proved that documents uncovered by the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston-based newspaper, suggesting he was paid substantial sums by the Iraqi regime were "crude forgeries". "The fact that two out of three sets of documents about me are forged tells you something, tells you at the very minimum that there is a market in forged documents about me and money and the Iraqi regime," he said. "I don't have to prove anything. The Daily Telegraph has to prove that the allegations they published about me are true. I am not yet in a position to say they are forgeries but I am in a position to say they are false and that the information in them is false." My feelings, as usual, we will disprove them all! When contacted by The Telegraph yesterday he maintained that this was not the first time he had said he was in Iraq on Boxing Day 1999. He added: "I have got nothing to say to the Telegraph." Not even a "see you in court!"? Posted by: Bulldog 2003-06-18 |
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