Is Galloway an ‘Honorable Member’ of Parliament?

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The New York Sun

To be a member of the House of Commons is no longer quite the honor that it was a century ago, when a quarter of the world was governed by the “mother of parliaments.” But MPs still address one another as “honorable members,” and to directly accuse another member of lying is still considered unparliamentary language. So it has raised more than an eyebrow that the investigative committee of an equally august assembly, the United States Senate, this week accused a British MP not only of pocketing U.N. oil-for-food money in return for services rendered to Saddam Hussein, but of lying about it under oath.


It may surprise readers that the man accused, George Galloway, should have been elected to the House of Commons at all. It is typical of the man that, having lost the respect of even his most left-wing colleagues in the Labor Party, he named his new one-man party “Respect.” A Glaswegian demagogue with a taste for razor-sharp suits and cutthroat dictators, Mr. Galloway’s entire career is an illustration of the principle first articulated by Dr. Goebbels: If the lie is big enough, it will be believed.


Last May, readers will recall, Mr. Galloway turned his testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations, which summoned him to explain Iraqi documents that named him as a beneficiary of Saddam’s diversion of funds intended for food and medicine, into a vitriolic rant about America and the Iraq war. His rhetorical smokescreen obscured his refusal to give adequate answers to allegations implicating him in the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the U.N.


Now the committee has responded with a detailed report showing payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars into bank accounts belonging to Mr. Galloway’s estranged Palestinian wife and the Mariam Appeal, a political campaign under his control.


Mr. Galloway immediately launched a press counteroffensive. His first tactic was to challenge the senators to prosecute him, knowing full well that they have no power to do so: “Charge me and I’ll head for the airport right now.” Brushing aside the payments (“Nobody has ever given me one thin dime”), he went on the offensive, insisting that evidence collected from senior members of Saddam’s regime, including the former foreign minister Tariq Aziz and former vice president Taha Tasin Ramadan, had been obtained under duress in “American dungeons in Iraq.”


It is instructive to see how Mr. Galloway, an apologist for regimes that use torture routinely, exploits the Abu Ghraib scandal to discredit properly obtained witness statements. Similarly, this lifelong toady of tyrants from Fidel Castro to Yasser Arafat tried to denigrate the committee’s leading figure, Senator Coleman of Minnesota, denouncing him as a “lickspittle … the most pro-Israel, pro-war, neocon senator on the Hill,” whose pursuit of the case is supposedly motivated not only by ideology but also by revenge. Absurdly, Mr. Galloway boasts that the senator’s presidential hopes were destroyed by his own performance at last May’s hearings.


Senator Coleman has refused to be drawn into an exchange of ad hominem abuse, insisting that the issue is not the Iraq war but Mr. Galloway’s probity. Comparing their performances on the BBC, my impression was that while Senator Coleman is confident, Mr. Galloway is rattled. Playing the anti-American card offers him diminishing returns, and his demand to be prosecuted is just histrionic.


Once the committee does refer Mr. Galloway to the Department of Justice, he may indeed face prosecution for perjury and obstruction of congressional proceedings, as well as the original accusations of soliciting and receiving illegal payments. Despite his bombast, I doubt whether Mr. Galloway would volunteer to go on trial in America on charges that carry long prison sentences.


Could he be forced to stand trial? No sitting British MP has ever been extradited to America before. However, the senators have accused Mr. Galloway not only of lying under oath during the hearings last May, but of committing perjury in the British high court when he successfully sued the Daily Telegraph for libel two years ago. The London newspaper had found documents in Baghdad that purported to show that he had been in the pay of Saddam Hussein. Under oath, Mr. Galloway denied receiving any payments, and after a highly publicized trial, he was awarded some $250,000 in damages. The Telegraph appealed the case.


If it emerged that Mr. Galloway lied under oath, he could face prosecution for perjury in Britain as well as America. There are recent precedents for parliamentarians being prosecuted for perjury in libel cases. Two well-known conservatives, the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken and the novelist Jeffrey Archer, have served jail terms for perjury.


There is more. After the Telegraph published its documents, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Sir Philip Mawer, began an investigation, which has been suspended during the libel case in order not to prejudice court proceedings. The Telegraph’s appeal was heard by the Court of Appeal earlier this month, and judgment is expected shortly, allowing the parliamentary investigation to resume.


Mr. Mawer is working closely with the Senate committee, conscious of the fact that Britain’s Parliament ought to put its own house in order rather than leave its American cousin to do all the digging. Mr. Mawer knows Mr. Galloway failed to disclose any payments from the oil-for-food program in the MPs’ register of interests. If his fellow MPs were to conclude, on the basis of Mr. Mawer’s inquiry, that Mr. Galloway deliberately broke the rules of the House, he could be suspended or even expelled. Deprived of parliamentary privilege, Mr. Galloway’s extradition to America would be much more feasible.


All Mr. Galloway’s hubristic bombast will not save him from the nemesis that in all likelihood now awaits him. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly on both sides of the Atlantic. Still, one way or another, I expect “Gorgeous George” to pay the price of his mendacity in this world rather than the next.


The New York Sun

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