George Galloway Transcript by me....

Okay, I'm not very trusting anymore. I wrote the other day I was becoming more cynical and was told that it was just that I was loosing some of the rose colored tint on my glasses.

I read some of the selected comments the media used to quote George Galloway of saying today. There's no written transcript of his comments yet, however the video is archived thru the Senate website. So I decided I wanted to watch it -- I watched the opening comments and various parts of the other testimony without making notes, about two hours into it George Galloway appears. He's not refusing to answer questions as some of the media reports implies. He is pissed. He didn't appear to help answer questions, he wanted a chance to tell his side of the story.

I haven't transcribed all of his comments yet, but I have heard all of his testimony. Luckily I used to be a secretary or to be "pc" administrative assistant so I think I did a pretty good job in transcribing.

So here was the majority of his opening comments and I think you'll see exactly what he was trying to say.

He starts out stating he denies having any oil sold at all. That the claim made that he had "many" meetings with Saddam was false that he had only two meetings with Saddam in 1994 and 2002 -- pointed out the same numbers of visits Rumsfeld has had with Saddam selling him weapons and giving maps. States his visit in 1994 to try to end Sanctions - 2002 to get Saddam to allow Blix back in "a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his"

States the accusation that he was an outspoken supporter of Saddam is false. Provided statements back to 1990 where he condemned the Hussein dictatorship. He was an opponent when British and American gov were doing commerce. "I have rather a better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do or any member of the British or American Governments do"

This is where it became obvious the best way to do total justice was to transcribe what he said word for word. I left certain gaps....where something was repeated or not as relevant.

"You have the gall to quote a source without ever having asked me if the allegations from the source was true. That I am quote the owner of a company that has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil. Senator, I do not own any companies beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer Associated Newspapers in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil and you had no business to carry a quotation utterly unsubstatiated and false implying otherwise. Now you have nothing on me Senator execept my name on lists of names from Iraq many of which had been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zerofski(sp) and even Paskwa(sp) they would have been up there in your slide show for this committee today. You have my name on lists provided to you by the Daueffer inquiry provided to him by the convicted bank robber and fraudster and conman Achmed Chabali who many people in your country to their credit now realize had a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq. There were 270 names on that list orginally that has somehow been filtered down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that list included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Presidental Conference and many others who had one defining cause in common they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and has led us to this disaster.....If you had any evidence at all that anybody ever gave me any money it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr. Greenblatt, your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct, what counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody and if you had any evidence of anybody who ever paid me a penny you would have produced them here today......and while I'm on the subject, who is the former Senior official in Iraq that you talked to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think this committee has a right to know who this Senior former regieme official you were quoting against me, interviewed yesterday actually is?

Now the neo-con websites and newspapers where you're such a hero Senator, were all cockahoot about the publications of the Chrisitan Science documents. They were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all abosultely convinced that these documents showed me receiving ten million dollars from the Saddam Hussein regieme and they were all lies. In the same week the Daily Telegraph published their articles about me the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British Mail on Sunday published a third set of documents which also on forensic examination were found out to be forgeries.....The existance of forged documents implicating me in commerical activities with the Iraqi regieme is documented it's a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents were being circulated among right wing newspapers in Iraq and around the world in the media in the aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regieme.

Now Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political lifesblood to try to stop the mass killings of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed a million Iraqis most of them children. Most of them died before they even knew they were Iraqis but they died for no other reason than they were Iraqi with the misfortune of being born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did committ in invading Iraq and I told the world that your case for going to war was a pack of lies. I told the world that contrary to your claims that Iraq did not have WMD. I told the world contrary to your claims that Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. I told the world contrary to your claims that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world 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 who's dissmissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some type of a corrupt traitor; if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britian we would not be in the disaster we are in today. Senator this is the mother of all smoke screens, you are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraqs 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 Iraqs wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and the other American corporations that stole not only Iraqs 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 who knows went where......Have a look at the real scandal that the real sanction busters were not me or Russian politicians or French Politicians, the real sanction busters were your own companies with the conivance of your own government"

I consider myself a half way decent judge of a person on how they speak, granted George Galloway is a politican, but the undertone of emotion in his voice when he spoke made me feel either this guy is telling what he feels is the truth or he should win an Academy Award. If you want to see and hear this for yourself, Scroll down to Webcast, it plays in Real Player format. As I wrote, it's almost two hours into it when he begins speaking.