The first one deals with something I said at the time he appeared in front of the Senate, namely, that Sen. Coleman is a former prosecutor and stated at the time that the reason Galloway was there was so the Senate could get Galloway's statement on the record - under oath.
On May 23, 2005, while newspapers were waxing delirious over the rhetorical drubbing that George Galloway was apparently administering to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, the Belmont Club on the old site noted something peculiar about the apparent passivity of the Senators towards Galloway's barbs.
The really striking thing about the Galloway's testimony as transcribed by the Information Clearing House is how the Senators and the Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow were pursuing a non-collision course. Galloway had come to score press and public relations points at which, by all accounts, he was successful at doing. But Senator Coleman and Levin seemed totally uninterested in responding to Galloway's sharp political jibes. It was almost as if the Senators were deaf to his political posturing. Instead, they focused exclusively and repeatedly on two things: Galloway's relationship with Fawaz Zureikat and Tariq Aziz. Zureikat was a board member of Galloway's Mariam foundation who is also implicated in the Oil For Food deals. Tariq Aziz was Saddam's vice president.
Be sure and read the transcript.
And now we know why.
The second post deals with the possibility that Zureikat may turn on Galloway.
If all that stands between Galloway and a conviction for perjury is the defense that he was misled by Zureikat, it follows that Zureikat must agree to cover for him. The Simply Appalling blog has an interesting reference to a dead link in the Independent, which hints that Zureikat may not be so willing to go down with Galloway.
Well, Kim Sengupta and Terri Judd of the UK's Independent were able to reach Mr. Zureikat for comment, and he had some interesting things to say.
The Jordanian businessman accused of passing oil money from Saddam Hussein to George Galloway has revealed that he is once again trading in Iraq and making trips to America with the approval of the US authorities. Fawaz Zureikat was speaking publicly for the first time since he was named by a US Senate investigative committee examining the United Nations oil-for-food programme. He told The Independent that neither the new government in Baghdad nor US officials had raised any objections to him renewing his trade with Iraq.
There's a new government in Baghdad, which is incidentally trying Galloway's old pal Saddam Hussein for capital crimes, and Mr. Zureikat would understandably be anxious to carry on his business with the current government. He would be in a potential position to remember names, locations, other witnesses and documents that may cast doubt on George Galloway's assertion that he knew nothing of the provenance of the money that showed up in the Mariam Appeal accounts.
Not only that, Galloway sent the Mariam records to Zureikat in Jordan the day the Charity Commission launched their investigation. While Galloway maintains the Commission cleard him the Commission actually gave up the investigation when Galloway failed to turn over the records. That investigation has now been reopened.
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