Galloway

George Galloway sat at a microphone with a crowd of onlookers and journalists and photographers seated behind him. His eyes were fixed squarely ahead, and he did not for a moment take them off the Senators seated before him. Not once did he look away or even down at the table.

Here is part of what he said. (See this page for a video link of his testimony. The transcription is mine as are any inevitable discrepancies between the text and his actual testimony.)

Now Senator,

I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted.

I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by sanctions on Iraq which killed a million Iraqis most of them children. Most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to be born at that time.

I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq.

And I told the world that your case for war was a pack of lies.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to Al-Queada.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9-11 2001.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator,

In everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right, and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives. 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies. 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded,

If the world had listened to President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor,

If the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today.

Senator,

This is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Have a look at the real oil-for-food scandal.

Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when 8.8 billion dollars of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch.

Have a look at Halliburton the other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money but the money of the American taxpayer.

Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where.

Have a look at the 800 million dollars you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee, that the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own government.

(Hat tip: Crooks and Liars for the link to the video clip.)
(Hat tip: Body and Soul for that crooksandliars link.)

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