Sunday, April 27, 2003

Galloway targeted

NOTES: George Galloway, a British MP, is a known
sympathiser with Saddam Hussein. He has visited
Baghdad several times and has met with Saddam and
other Iraqi leaders. He opposed the war. He is very
outspoken. He led several anti-war rallies in London.
He was a communist in Scotland before he embraced the
Labour party in the 70s and rose through the ranks to
become an MP from Glasgow, Scotland. He is known for
his support for the Palestinians and other Arab causes
and in fact these positions have given him respect
among liberal Britons. Therefore, the ongoing campaign
against him is widely seen as retribution by his
pro-Israeli defractors.


by pv vivekanand

BRITISH MP George Galloway is fnding himself under
attack from several quarters for his refusal to
endorse the US-British war against Iraq. He might even
face charges of treachery in a court of law for having
"incited" British soldiers against obeying orders to
fight in Iraq.
What is not said in public but what the waves say is
simple: Galloway took his case against war on Iraq
took too far and insulted and humiliated his Labour
party boss and Prime Minister Tony Blair and his
colleagues. And now the Blair camp is itching to get
back at him through whatever means available.
Blair has the option to take party disciplinary action
against Galloway, but he seems to have opted not to do
so if only because it might have a negative bearing on
him as a vindictive man.
The charges, formal and informal, from his pro-Blair
Labour Party members and the media, include:
-- He stepped beyond party lines when he commented
during an interview with Abu Dhabi Television that
Blair and George Bush were "wolves" and urged British
soldiers not to obey "illegal" orders to wage war
against Iraq.
-- His urging to the soldiers could be construed as
treachery under a 1934 act, and that is being touted
by a private group of lawyers representing British
service personnel to file a private case against him.
The Crown Prosecution Service has declined to wage its
own case but has cleared the lawyers' bid to sue
Galloway, an MP from Glasgow long known for his
involvement with Middle Eastern affairs and as a
friend of Saddam Hussein.
-- Galloway is accused of taking money from Saddam -
£375,000 a year -- by the Telegraph newspaper.
Galloway has denied the charge and is suing the paper,
but the paper says it has found documents that suggest
that its report is accurate. It is ready for a fight
with Galloway.
-- Galloway is accused of "misusing" funds he
collected for the Mariam Appeal to fund medical
treatment of Iraqi victims of the UN sanctions against
Iraq. Gallowway has again challenged the charge, but
the attorney general's office has launched an
investigation into the charges.
-- Galloway is accused of having indirectly a member
of the Al Qaeda group who is suspected of having
played a role in plotting bombings against US
embassies in Africa.
That charge stemmed from a visit he paid to Morocco in
1996 in order to explore a possible deal between the
Saudi government and London-based Saudi dissidents of
the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights.
Galloway has admitted in parliament that Saudi
dissident Saad Al Fagih paid for the trip. Later it
was found that Fayigh bought a satellite phone on
behalf of Fagih for Khaled Al Fawwaz, another Saudi
dissident. Fawwaz is currently held in a British
prison fighting a US effort to get him extradited to
stand trial in an American court.
-- The satellite phone bought by Fayigh was shipped to
Mohammed Atta and was used in plotting for the August
1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and
Kenya, says the Observer newspaper.
Mohammed Atta, according to the CIA, headed the group
of suicide hijackers in the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in
New York and Washington after having plotted the
bombings in Africa in 1998.
However, there is no insinuation that Galloway had any
knowledge of Al Qaeda activities or he had known Osama
Bin Laden at any point.
Galloway, who describes the accusation that he
collected money from
Saddam Hussein as a "lie of fantastic proportions."
has called that the
investigation into the Mariam Appeal resembled a
"witch hunt."
Galloway has always been involved in Middle Eastern
affairs. It was
that involvement which propelled him into the
forefront of leftist
politics in the UK since the 1970s.
Galloway is not fazed by the "incitement charge."
'I hope to have chiselled on my gravestone: 'He
incited them to disaffect'," he says.
"The people who have betrayed this country are those
who have sold it
to a foreign power and who have been the miserable
surrogates of a
bigger power for reasons very few people in Britain
can understand," said
Galloway,
The investigation into the Mariam Appeal funds is
implicitly linked to
charges that Galloway collected money from Saddam
Hussein.
In a response to Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general,
Galloway said:
"Given your, to many, extraordinary decision to
declare the war on Iraq
legal, despite the opinions of the UN secretary
general and
international law experts around the world, it would
be perverse for you to now declare my anti-war work
illegal under British law."
The Telegraph, which levelled the charge that Galloway
took money from
Saddam, says it stands by its report. Furthermore, it
also followed up
the first report by alleging that Saddam tried to
protect the MP from
the potential scandal of being linked to the Iraqi
secret service, the
Mukhabarat.
It says that it had found documents in Iraq suggesting
that Galloway
was given a percentage of Iraqi oil sales -- worth
about £375,000 a year
through the oil-for-food programme.
The Telegraphs says that would "look forward" to a
legal battle with
Galloway.
In yet another charge, another British paper reported
finding the copy of a letter written in 1998 by the
then foreign secretary, Robin Cook. to Galloway
refusing Galloway's allegation that four members of
the UN weapon inspectors in Iraq were Israeli spies.
The copy of the letter, which was found in the
post-war ruins of the foreign ministry building in
Baghdad last week, was allegedly sent by the head of
the Iraqi interest section in London to the deputy
foreign minister. While it was not classified as a
confidential document, the "clinch," says the
newspaper, was that the iraqi diplomat's covering note
to the deputy minister was dated four days after the
date it was sent by Cook to Galloway. It showed
Galloway's collusion with the Iraqi regime throughout,
the newspaper suggested.

Aziz kept out of info

By PV Vivekanand

“What do you mean Yvegny, you need an answer from the
President in 24 hours? It’d take me 48 hours to reach
my president.” These were the words of Tareq Aziz, who
was then foreign minister of Iraq, to Yvegny Primakov,
then a noted Russian journalist, who was on an urgent
mission to Baghdad in late 1990.
He was carrying a message from the then Russian president, Mikhail
Gorbachev, to Saddam Hussein offering a last-minute proposal to avert war over Kuwait.
He wanted a quick response to the offer in order to meet a deadline set
by George Bush senior as a special consideration for Gorbachev.
Aziz did reach Saddam in less than 24 hours and Primakov got his reply in 36 hours: Thanks but no thanks, Iraq would not withdraw from Kuwait.
Well, today the US forces Iraq have Aziz, 67,
under custody and are interrogating him on details of
the toppled Saddam regime’s machinations. Some even
venture to say that Aziz could even provide details
of Saddam’s whereabouts if the toppled leader is alive
or at least give a clear idea about his last movement.
That might indeed be possible. But the interrogators
would stand as much chance in gaining information from
Aziz on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction as
one could extract water from steel.
It is not because Aziz would or could withstand third
degree methods or he is determined not to reveal the
details. It is simply because he might not have any
such information. It is a safe bet that he would not
have known whether Saddam had any weapons of mass
destruction or, even if he did now, their nature, let
alone their alleged storage sites.
It might sound strange that someone who was seen as
close to Saddam as anyone have no idea about the
so-called weapons of mass destruction and does not
know where they are (allegedly) hidden.
That is where what Aziz told Primakov become relevant:
Although Aziz was part of Saddam’s inner circle, he
was informed of the regime’s actions only on a
need-to-know basis.
The reality, according highly informed sources, is that Saddam made sure Aziz never knew anything about the regime’s strategy on its weapons of
mass destruction or anything that could potentially be
extracted from the man, who was deputy prime minister
at the time of the latest US-led war toppled Saddam..
The reason: Saddam did not want to take the chance
that Aziz could be, at some point during his frequent
travels as his diplomatic pointman, coerced into
talking.
“We always knew that Aziz was told as little as
possible – not because Saddam did not trust him but
because Saddam believed in the adage ‘what the mind
does not know the tongue could not tell’,” says a
highly informed intelligence source. “Saddam did not
even discount the possibility that Aziz could even be
induced to part with whatever information he had
through use of truth serums and the like.”
Aziz was one of the most travelled Saddam aides and,
as far as Saddam was concerned, the minister always
carried the risk of being kidnapped by US agents or
even prompted to reveal what he knew without him being
aware of it (through use of truth serum or through any
of the many methods that does not involve the use of
force or torture). All the CIA might have wanted with
him was a few hours.
As such, Saddam never took the risk of even allowing
Aziz to know of his secret bunkers or his personal
security arrangements. And this was accepted by Aziz
if only because it placed him above suspicion of
having ever revealed anything to anyone.
During some personal moments during his frequent
visits to Amman after the 1991 war, Aziz had indicated
that he was often summoned to meetings with Saddam at
short notice, and was even blindfolded when Saddam’s
security men drive him to the president’s presence.
Again, Aziz welcomed the precautions because Saddam or
his people could not accuse him of having disclosed
the whereabouts of the president if only because he
did not know.
Of course, Aziz could reveal a lot about
how the regime worked and what role each of the Saddam
aides played. But he would know very little about
Saddam’s security arrangements with any accuracy. He
could provide clues but even that could be of little
help.
As such, it is definitely a myth that the US would be
able to secure from Aziz details of the locations
where Saddam hid his alleged stockpile of weapons of
mass destruction – if indeed the American claims have
any grain of truth that Iraq did have such weapons in
the first place.