[mobglob-discuss] SCOTT RITTER ON GEORGE GALLOWAY

[Carole Karkhairan]

Galloway's a crook - how convenient 
These dramatic revelations come just when Britain
needs an outspoken voice of dissent more than ever 
Scott Ritter
Friday April 25, 2003
The Guardian 

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. 
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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Scott Ritter was formerly chief UN weapons inspector
in Iraq 

WSRitter at aol.com 


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