Britain ridicules MP with ties to Hussein

LONDON - Documents found in Iraq show that Saddam Hussein took steps to protect the reputation of a British legislator who vehemently opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a British newspaper reported Thursday.

And an American newspaper reported that it obtained documents showing that Hussein's government paid George Galloway, a Labor Party member of Parliament, more than $10-million for his support.

The report in Britain's Daily Telegraph came on top of a story this week by the same paper that sparked investigations into connections between Galloway and the Hussein government.

Law enforcement officials have begun a preliminary investigation into whether Galloway misused money from an Iraqi aid charity he runs. The governing Labor Party is investigating separate allegations that Galloway also received money from Hussein's government through the oil-for-food program.

Galloway has dismissed the allegations as lies and has instructed his attorneys to sue the Telegraph for libel.

On Thursday, Galloway told the British Broadcasting Corp.: "This is a lie of fantastic proportions which only the most credulous would believe. . . . The idea that the Iraqi regime was channeling to me, personally, hundreds of thousands of pounds is simply absurd."

On its Web site Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reported that Hussein's government authorized six payments to Galloway, totaling more than $10-million, between July 1992 and January 2003, according to documents the newspaper obtained.

The Monitor said an Iraqi general had discovered the papers in a house outside Baghdad that was used by Hussein's son Qusay, who it said appeared to have authorized at least one of the payments.

One document, dated January 2003, reportedly authorizes a check of $3-million and says the money was in return for Galloway's "courageous and daring stands against the enemies of Iraq, like (Tony) Blair, the British prime minister, and for his opposition in the House of Commons and Lords against all outrageous lies against our patient people."

In a story from Baghdad, the Telegraph reported Thursday that it found a letter dated May 6, 2000, in files of the looted Iraqi Foreign Ministry showing Hussein sought to protect Galloway by severing his contacts with Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence and secret police service.

"It is better not to engage the Mukhabarat in the relationship with George Galloway, as he has been a well-known politician since 1990, and discovery of his relationship with the Mukhabarat would damage him very much," Izzat Ibrahim, one of Hussein's deputies, said in the letter.

The newspaper said the memo emerged from a committee that had been established to examine Galloway's alleged request for more money.

Galloway has represented a district in Glasgow, Scotland, since 1987. In 1999, he drove from London to Baghdad in a red double-decker bus, receiving a hero's welcome.

Galloway's fellow legislators now refer to him as "the member for Baghdad Central" and ridicule him for his expressions of admiration for Hussein and his frequent glad-handing trips to the Iraqi capital.

When Prime Minister Tony Blair was pondering a question in Parliament this month about who in Iraq would be qualified to deliver the unconditional surrender that Britain was seeking, an anonymous legislator brought the House down by shouting, "George Galloway!"

In the early days of the war, he told Abu Dhabi TV that Blair and President Bush were attacking Iraq "like wolves," and he urged British soldiers not to fight.

Blair said last week that he thought Galloway's comments during the war had been a "disgrace," and the Labor Party is looking to expel him. It will likely have to wait until his threatened court action is finished, but party leaders may have been spared taking direct action by Scotland's redistricting for the next election. It has eliminated his seat.

- Information from the Associated Press and New York Times was used in this report.

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