Galloway faces new Iraq charges

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Maverick British lawmaker George Galloway solicited and received nearly $600,000 in profits for himself and a charity he ran from secret deals under the Iraq oil-for-food program, Senate investigators charged yesterday.

The new charges, released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations, come five months after Mr. Galloway, a fierce critic of U.S. policy in Iraq, emphatically denied under oath to the panel that he had taken bribes from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein or participated in any Iraq oil deals.

Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, said the new findings "clearly demonstrate that the testimony given by Mr. Galloway in May was false and misleading."

"We heard a lot of bombast at that hearing, but Mr. Galloway has been anything but straight with Congress or with the American people," Mr. Coleman told reporters.

The outspoken British lawmaker, who was expelled from the ruling Labor Party for his criticisms of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Iraq war, denied the charges in written responses to the new report.

The new findings were based in part on interviews with three senior officials under Saddam, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, as well as on bank account records.

The evidence details what investigators said were direct transfers of oil-for-food profits to bank accounts controlled by Mr. Galloway's wife and by the Mariam Appeal, a charity and political organization founded by Mr. Galloway.

Among the subcommittee's findings:

• Mr. Galloway personally asked for and received from Mr. Aziz and others eight allocations from 1999 to 2003 for the rights to 23 million barrels of oil.

• Amineh Abu-Zayyad, Mr. Galloway's wife, received $150,000 in the summer of 2000 from Fawaz Zureikat, the Jordanian businessman Mr. Galloway acknowledges was his business representative in Baghdad.