- News>
- World
Documents on Iraq were fraudulent: Christian Science Monitor
Boston, June 20: The `Christian Science Monitor` reported on its web site that documents it relied on in reporting that Iraq authorised six payments to a British lawmaker totalling more than $10 million dollars were fraudulent.
Boston, June 20: The 'Christian Science Monitor' reported on its web site that documents it relied on in reporting that Iraq authorised six payments to a British lawmaker totalling more than $10 million dollars were fraudulent.
"When new information cast doubt on the documents, we conducted an extensive investigation of their authenticity which culminated this week in the virtual certainty that they were forged,'' monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck wrote in an editor's note accompanying the Boston-based newspaper's account of its internal investigation of the documents.
On April 25, the monitor said it had been given documents discovered in the Baghdad house of Qusai Hussein, one of Saddam Hussein's two sons, that showed Saddam's government authorised six payments to Labour lawmaker George Galloway totaling more than $ 10 million, between July 1992 and last January. The paper said a general in Iraq's Republican Guard discovered the papers.
According to the newspaper report, a document in January authorised a check of USD 3 million in recognition of Galloway's "courageous and daring stands against the enemies of Iraq, like (Tony) Blair, the British Prime Minister, and for his position in the House of Commons and Lords against all outrageous lies against our patient people.'' the report was published on the paper's web site Thursday.
Galloway, a vocal opponent of the war to oust Saddam and a frequent visitor to Iraq before the conflict, repeatedly denied receiving payments from Iraq and called the 'Monitor' report ``fantastically untrue.''
Similar reports on Galloway allegedly receiving payments from Saddam were carried in the 'Daily Telegraph' in London.
Bureau Report
On April 25, the monitor said it had been given documents discovered in the Baghdad house of Qusai Hussein, one of Saddam Hussein's two sons, that showed Saddam's government authorised six payments to Labour lawmaker George Galloway totaling more than $ 10 million, between July 1992 and last January. The paper said a general in Iraq's Republican Guard discovered the papers.
According to the newspaper report, a document in January authorised a check of USD 3 million in recognition of Galloway's "courageous and daring stands against the enemies of Iraq, like (Tony) Blair, the British Prime Minister, and for his position in the House of Commons and Lords against all outrageous lies against our patient people.'' the report was published on the paper's web site Thursday.
Galloway, a vocal opponent of the war to oust Saddam and a frequent visitor to Iraq before the conflict, repeatedly denied receiving payments from Iraq and called the 'Monitor' report ``fantastically untrue.''
Similar reports on Galloway allegedly receiving payments from Saddam were carried in the 'Daily Telegraph' in London.
Bureau Report