Sat, May 14, 2005 page7

• Politicians angrily deny taking bribes from Iraq

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  Two politicians from France and Britain reacted angrily to renewed accusations that they took bribes from former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's government.

  In London, George Galloway, a British legislator who had met at least twice with Saddam, most recently in 2002, said he would testify in Washington before a Senate panel, which on Wednesday said he had received the rights to buy millions of barrels of Iraqi oil. In Paris, Charles Pasqua, a French senator and former interior minister, said "there's nothing new in this report," and suggested that the repetition of statements implicating him was politically motivated.

  The documents from the Iraqi Intelligence Service released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday also listed French and Russian individuals, companies and political parties that the Iraqi agency said must be targets because they were sympathetic to Iraq and powerful enough to advance its interests. One memo said an Iraqi official offered financial assistance to the re-election campaign of President Jacques Chirac of France but the offer was rejected.

  According to one of the documents, Saddam personally "ordered the improvement of dealing with France" in early 2002. A memo dated May 6, 2002, described a reported meeting between an unnamed Iraqi intelligence official and Roselyn Bachelot, whom the memo described as a French parliamentarian and "official spokeswoman" for Chirac's re-election campaign.

  The memo, titled "Iraqi-French Relations," said Bachelot "pointed out the historical relationship between the two countries" to the Iraqi agent and noted that "the subject of Iraq will be the first in the priorities and concerns of French politics on the condition that Mr. Chirac wins." The memo said Bachelot assured the agent that France would "use the right opposition [veto] within the Security Council against any American decision regarding the attack on Iraq," and would "work throughout the upcoming period to lift sanctions."

  Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for the House committee, said the Iraqi memos came from the thousands of documents that were collected but not published by Charles Duelfer, the top US arms inspector. She said the Iraqi intelligence service memos were provided to the committee by the CIA, and then translated by the committee's own expert, a member of the Iraq Survey Group.

  In an interview Thursday in Paris, Pasqua said there had never been any substantial proof to back up the memos and statements that were disclosed Wednesday by the Senate committee. He also called for an investigation into where the money from such oil sales went.

  "They should follow the money," he said, repeating his earlier denials that neither he nor his supporters received anything from the oil-for-food program.

  Pasqua said he had asked France's Senate to establish its own commission to investigate the accusations against him.

  "What I don't accept is taking at face value what has been said by the Iraqis without evidence to support it," he said.

  At least one member of the Iraq Survey Group offered a similar caution about the memos from Iraq's intelligence service that the House released on Thursday. "You must be skeptical of their claims," the investigator said. "Iraqi agents may have exaggerated or misconstrued statements by people they met with to make themselves look more active and effective."

  Pasqua said the US "wants to prove that the positions taken by France before the war were dictated by economic interests."

  But he said that people who made such claims were out of touch with French politics. Pasqua broke with Chirac in 1998 and has since had little influence at Elysee Palace.

  In a statement issued by his spokesman in London, Galloway also criticized the Senate panel for not having interviewed him before it accused him of receiving rights to buy up to 20 million barrels of oil.

  "I repeat once more, I have never traded or benefited from any oil deals with Iraq," he said.

  Following Galloway's initial, vehement denials of the Senate panel's charges, a spokesman for the committee said its chairman, Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, had invited Galloway to appear at a hearing on May 17.

  On Thursday, Galloway said in the statement relayed by his spokesman, Ron Mckay: "I'll be there to give them both barrels -- verbal guns, of course, not oil -- assuming we get the visas. I welcome the opportunity to clear my name. My first words will be `Senator, it's a pity that we are having this interview after you have found me guilty. Even in Kafka there was the semblance of a trial."'
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