- I was shocked to read about the allegations, ostensibly
based upon documents discovered in Iraq, that George Galloway was somehow
compensated financially by the Iraqi government for championing its cause.
I was shocked because, if these allegations prove to be true, then the
integrity and credibility of a man for whom I have great respect would
be dramatically undermined.
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- But I was also shocked because of the timing of these
allegations. Having been on the receiving end of smear campaigns designed
to assassinate the character of someone in opposition to the powers that
be, I have grown highly suspicious of dramatic revelations conveniently
timed to silence a vocal voice of dissent.
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- The charges made against Galloway are serious and they
should be thoroughly investigated. Do these charges have any merit? I will
continue to operate under the assumption of innocence until proven guilty.
I hope the charges against George Galloway are baseless but, to be honest,
I simply don't know.
-
- But I do know a few things about George Galloway and
the cause he championed with regards to Iraq. I know that he helped found
the Mariam Appeal, a humanitarian organisation established in 1998 initially
to raise funds on behalf of an Iraqi girl who suffered from leukaemia and
who, because of economic sanctions, was unable to receive adequate medical
care. I met Mariam in 1999, when she was a guest of the Bruderhof Society
here in the US, a religious movement that eschews individual wealth and
promotes a simple, communal life. She was getting treatment for the onset
of blindness caused by medical neglect related to her leukaemia treatment.
-
- Mariam is a real person, not some political stunt. Her
suffering was genuine. So, too, was the joy of her maternal grandmother,
who accompanied Mariam to the US when she realised that while Mariam might
be blind, she was going to live, thanks in no small part to the work of
people like George Galloway, whose dramatic intervention got Mariam out
of Iraq and into the hands of those who could care for her.
-
- I know that Galloway helped set up the British-Iraqi
friendship association. I know because he invited me to come to London
and speak at the association's inaugural meeting. The message I heard him
deliver that night was one of human kindness and compassion. He spoke out
against the suffering of the Iraqi people under the effects of a decades-long
economic embargo. I heard him decry the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
But I also heard him lambast the policies of his own country, and those
of the US, which were subjecting the innocent people of Iraq to such suffering.
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- Establishing the friendship association was a politically
incorrect thing to do at the time. Galloway's political opponents could,
and did, make political hay from such actions, deriding them as "pro-Saddam".
In the months to come, I'm sure many British people will flock to organisations
espousing friendship between Britain and Iraq, now that it is the trendy
thing to do. Galloway was a friend of the Iraqi people back when they most
needed the friendship and understanding of the British people.
-
- I know that Galloway was a leading, and highly vocal,
critic of the war with Iraq. He challenged Tony Blair's policies and statements
about the justification for the war, namely the allegations made by Britain
and the US concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes and
its failure to comply with its security council-mandated obligations to
disarm. I know because I share Galloway's views about the unsustained nature
of the British-American case against Iraq.
-
- He spoke out vociferously against Blair's policies on
Iraq, demanding evidence concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction more
substantial than the plagiarised dossier and forged documents produced
by Whitehall. The case for war, as flimsy as it was in the months before
Operation Iraqi Freedom began, has been shown to date to be utterly without
merit, as no stockpiles of hidden weapons of mass destruction have been
uncovered by the US and British military forces occupying Iraq.
-
- If it turns out that there are no weapons of mass destruction
or programmes related to their production and concealment in Iraq, Blair
and his government must be held accountable by the British people for actions
carried out in their name. If British policy was sustained on the back
of a lie, then those who perpetrated that lie must be called upon to explain
themselves. Now, more than ever, the British people need a voice of opposition,
because it is from the ranks of the opposition that the matter of policing
bad policy will be raised.
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- To allow George Galloway to be silenced now, when his
criticisms of British policy over Iraq have been shown to be fundamentally
sound, would be a travesty of democracy. Rather than casting him aside,
the British people should reconsider his statements in the light of the
emerging reality that it is Blair and not Galloway who has been saying
things worthy of investigation.
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- Scott Ritter was formerly chief UN weapons inspector
in Iraq Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited www.guardian.co.uk
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