WASHINGTON — Things are getting very grim here in Washington.
The Democrats are fighting a desperate rear-guard action against
the Republicans on several fronts. They are fighting to maintain
their death grip on federal judicial appointments. They are
resisting Social Security reform. They are using every expedient to
scandalize the President’s designated U.N. ambassador, John Bolton.
This is not a constructive use of power, for the Democrats have no
constructive proposals to advance. It is merely a grim assertion of
“no” to the political party now controlling the White House and
Capitol Hill.
That is why I personally, as a professional observer of
Washington politics, want to thank the Hon. George Galloway, the
off-beat Member of Parliament for traveling all the way to
Washington from London to provide us with a comic interlude. He has
been accused by Senate investigators of profiting from Saddam
Hussein’s manipulation of the U.N. oil-for-food scam. Blustering
and shaking in what sounded to me like a Scottish accent — though
it could have been the consequence of strong drink — the Hon.
Galloway informed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations that the charge is “utterly preposterous.” “I am not
now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on
my behalf,” he solemnized.
This line, of course, is an adaption from the line once used by
American Communists and fellow travelers while appearing before
congressional investigations of Communist subversion during the
1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. Galloway is a ritualistic leftist.
He is so left-wing that he was given the heave-ho by his own Labour
Party. Somehow he thought it clever to portray himself in the role
once made famous by American leftists testifying before Congress.
After his appearance a tumescent Galloway appeared before the
cameras to boast of how his British parliamentary style had bested
our more “sedate” congressional proceedings.
Galloway seems unaware that modern America does not feel much
sympathy for left-wing subversives. Moreover, with the publication
of documents from the intelligence archives of the Soviet Union it
is clear that many of those leftists and Communists from the past
really were engaged in subversion for Moscow. The “Red Scare” was a
Red Reality. As to how effective this master of British
parliamentarian style was before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations, consider this. After Galloway proclaimed his
innocence and denounced President George W. Bush’s Iraqi war as the
result of a “pack of lies,” Republicans and Democrats came to
amiable agreement for the first time in months. As the ranking
Democrat on the committee, Senator Carl Levin, put it, Galloway’s
performance was “not credible.” Levin, like Galloway, opposes the
war.
The reason Galloway is not credible is that Levin’s committee
has documents, mounds of documents, linking European officials to
profits from the oil-for-food scam that now appears to be the
largest case of political graft in history. Saddam used it to arm
himself, buy political allies around the world, and fund
terrorists. Galloway admits that he met repeatedly with Saddam’s
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and even with Saddam,
twice — as frequently as did Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, Galloway admits puckishly and pointlessly. Galloway does
not deny the import of documents showing him working with a
Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureqat, in various deals in Baghdad.
He simply denies that he received money from the 20 million barrels
of oil documents say he and Zureqat got.
Galloway’s buffoonery aside, the evidence now being displayed by
our government explains why so many European politicians were so
patient with Saddam’s numerous breaches of U.N. resolutions. There
was money in it for them personally. Up until the revelations of
the oil-for-food scam, I had thought that the Europeans’ refusal to
attack Saddam was simply another example of European cowardice.
There was in the months before the invasion of Iraq no great debate
over weapons of mass destruction. There was only the Europeans’
feigned claim that we had not exhausted every diplomatic approach
to Saddam. He ignored U.N. resolutions. He rejected international
inspections. He acted willfully and with impunity. Yet at the U.N.,
officials refused to take action. Now we know why: there and in
many foreign capitals officials were on the take.
