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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (95425)	4/21/2003 8:41:16 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

There is a word for taking money from enemy regimes: treason There will be more of this coming out. Much more.

To: NickSE who wrote (95425)	4/21/2003 9:11:36 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is an article where MP Galloway tries to explain some things about this shady affair but only digs a deeper grave for himself. dailytelegraph.co.uk Mr Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal in 1998 when he flew a young Iraqi girl, Mariam Hamza, to Glasgow for treatment in a children's hospital. She was suffering from leukaemia, for which Mr Galloway blamed uranium-tipped weapons used by the allies in the 1991 Gulf war. The fund paid for her treatment. But subsequently it became a political organisation, campaigning against Iraqi sanctions. It has paid for trips by Mr Galloway to 15 countries including Jordan, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Belgium and the USA. The Mariam Appeal is not a charity and it does not disclose its accounts. Recently Mr Galloway told a reporter who asked him for details: "I regard you as a whore writing for a pimp." Yesterday he was slightly more forthcoming. He said the three main funders were the government of the United Arab Emirates, the government of Saudi Arabia and Fawaz Zureikat, the man named in the Iraqi intelligence document as the appeal's representative in Baghdad. Asked about its income, he said: "I would have said that its total funding over its whole life was around £1 million over five years, more than half of which came from the government of the United Arab Emirates." Asked why he had not disclosed its funding arrangements in the past, he said: "The Mariam Appeal is a political campaign that was involved in a life or death struggle against the might of the British and American state. It had no obligation to open its activities to its enemies and it did not do so and will not do so." Neither he nor his wife, Dr Amineh Abu Zaid, benefited personally from the fund, which is now wound up, he added. "I have never myself received any money, any benefits, from these campaigns. On the contrary, I have given my political life's blood to them." Mr Galloway admitted that Mr Zureikat did represent the appeal in Iraq. He said he had written a letter making this clear. Asked why that was necessary, he said: "Because Iraq was a very bureaucratic place. In order to carry out the things that we needed to carry out, the care and attention for the child, we needed someone to be recognised as speaking for the campaign there." Mr Galloway described Mr Zureikat as a wealthy businessman who went to university in Jordan and Iraq. The MP said he met him through his Palestinian wife, who also went to university in Jordan. Asked if Mr Zureikat might have been taking money from the Iraqi regime, he said: "I do not believe that he was soliciting funds from the regime on my behalf. He was an extremely generous benefactor of the appeal." Mr Zureikat was a "Middle East trader", the MP said. Asked if he had traded oil, he replied: "I think he has done in the past. I don't think that's his main business." When it was put to him that some of Mr Zureikat's oil money might have gone into the Mariam Appeal, he insisted that was not a matter for him. "I do not know which part of his profits from his business he was dedicating to our work. He was a politically committed person who was politically committed to lifting the embargo and opposing war. If you are asking me did I ask him to account for donations he made to our work, no I didn't." Although Mr Galloway strenuously denied that the meeting referred to in the Iraqi letter took place, he said he did spend one Christmas in Baghdad. He could not remember if it was Christmas 1999, although newspaper cuttings show that he did spend some time that December touring the Middle East.