Gorgeous George Galloway 3

Assuming that the bug in Blogger let's this post through, it is worthwhile reading Seixon's analysis of George Galloway's testimony before the Senate. (Hat tip: Roger Simon). Seixon compares Galloway's testimony to his Mariam Appeal website as it is archived in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and the Parliamentary Hansard records. His conclusion: Galloway did not tell the truth in his widely broadcast statements.

In particular, Galloway made it appear as if the background of his Mariam fundraising colleague, oil for food trader Mr. Zureikat, was public knowledge. Galloway said:

SEN. COLEMAN: So Mr. Galloway, you would have this committee believe that your designated representative from the Mariam's Appeal becomes the chair of the Mariam's Appeal, was listed in Iraqi documents as obviously doing business, oil deals with Iraq, that you never had a conversation with him in 2001 or whether he was doing oil business with Iraq.

GALLOWAY: No, I'm doing better than that. I'm telling you that I knew that he was doing a vast amount of business with Iraq. Much bigger, as I said a couple of answers ago, than any oil business he did. In the airports he was the representative of some of the world's biggest companies in Iraq. He was an extremely wealthy businessman doing very extensive business in Iraq.

Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature, on our Web site, precisely so that people like you could not later credibly question my bonafides in that regard. So I did better than that.

But the Internet Archive Wayback Machine tells a different story. Seixon notes:

Using an awesome website called the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we can look up how the Mariam Appeal website appeared throughout the past few years. I'm fairly certain that Mr. Galloway was not aware of this, for if he was, I'm not certain he would have made the statements he made.
Using this website, the last recorded instance of www.mariamappeal.com, when it was still under control of Mariam Appeal and George Galloway, was on July 21, 2001. As you can see on the website at this point in time, there is absolutely no mention of Mr. Zureikat or any other donors to the organization at all. There is no mention of Mr. Zureikat being in extensive business dealings with Iraq. Nothing.

Nothing.