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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired May 20, 2005 - 21:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With all due respect to you, Mr. Malloch-Brown, you're hired help, as is Kofi Annan and everyone else that serves in the secretariat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our focus right now is not George Galloway. And to be very -- George Galloway is small potatoes in this whole thing.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: The committee says you face perjury if the charges are later proven.

GEORGE GALLOWAY, BRITISH MP: I'm afraid the liars are on the other side of this argument.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The star witness in the U.S. Congress this week had everybody backing up, even the press. Here's a behind-the-scenes view following the dramatic testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee of British Parliament member George Galloway.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

The Oil For Food show moved back to Washington. U.S. senators wanted Galloway to take the oath so they could later try to nail him on a perjury wrap if shown later he lied. The Senate panel issued a report all but stating Galloway was paid off by Saddam Hussein as a reward for lobbying against sanctions. This was back in the days before Saddam was shown in his underwear.

Galloway, who had vowed to go in both barrels blazing, did not disappoint.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE GALLOWAY, BRITISH MP: What counts is not the names on the paper. What counts is where's the money, Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody, and if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them here today.

SENATOR NORM COLEMAN (R-MN): So this is somebody who is the chairman of your committee, that you know well, and you're not able to say that he was --

GALLOWAY: Well, there's a lot of contributors, I've just been checking --

COLEMAN: Not many at that level, Mr. Galloway, and for the record --

GALLOWAY: Let me assure you, there are. I've checked your Web site. There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you.

COLEMAN: Certainly not at $600,000 American.

GALLOWAY: Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies.

As a matter of fact, I've met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is, Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns. I (INAUDIBLE) opposed this Oil For Food program.

SENATOR CARL LEVIN (D-MI): There's a lot of things you opposed but you don't believe should be circumvented in illegal ways, isn't that --

GALLOWAY: Please, Senator. You supported the illegal attack on Iraq. Don't talk to me about illegalities.

LEVIN: Sorry about that. I didn't. But that's beside the point. You're wrong on your facts.

GALLOWAY: I'm collectively talking about the Senate, not you personally. Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony of this committee, that the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Galloway was aiming squarely at the chairman of the Senate investigations subcommittee, Norm Coleman, from the Midwest state of Minnesota. Afterwards, Coleman assessed the blazing witness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLEMAN: This wasn't a wrestling match. I had one goal in this, and that was to simply make a record, and I think we did that. Again, I think that Mr. Galloway's credibility is certainly very, very suspect, and if in fact he lied to this committee, then there'll will have to be consequences for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The man once known as Gorgeous George got a rousing reception for the most part back home in the United Kingdom. They even liked that one of their own went to the states, took on the Congress, challenging them on the war too.

In his native Scotland, the "Daily Record" newspaper headline screamed "George Spanks Yanks," which of course could be a headline in New York about the Yankees baseball team owned by George Steinbrenner.

Galloway versus Coleman. Who won? What does it mean for Oil For Food probes? And why can't more United Nations officials talk like Galloway in public?

For some perspective, we welcome James Bone, of the "Times of London," who attended the hearing in Washington, and Warren Hoag, of the "New York Times," now at the United Nations, but who was the paper's London bureau chief.

James, what is your lasting impression of Galloway's appearance?

JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": Well, I think he got away without getting caught out by the Senate committee. The Senate committee hadn't done their homework and wasn't able to show that he had taken any money despite their public statements that they thought he had taken some money.

And I thought he very strongly presented a bravura performance the anti-war case before the U.S. Senate, which is not often presented.

ROTH: Warren, you have dealt, I believe, with Mr. Galloway, back in the United Kingdom. What kind of guy is he -- and this wasn't really much of a surprise, then, for you, in his performance?

WARREN HOGE, "NEW YORK TIMES": Not at all, despite what Norm Coleman said, it was indeed a wrestling match. It was a fight. And I thought that looking at it as a fight, that Galloway had a couple of really good early rounds when he surprised Coleman by becoming a witness who talked back, not something you see very often in the U.S. Senate. You see it in the British Parliament every single day, of course.

And in the first couple of rounds, I thought Galloway, in making his speech, flummoxed Coleman. Coleman looked like he was at sea. He was lost up there in his chair on that big throne.

But then Galloway, and I think predictably -- you said I know him, yes, I do know him, and I sort of figured he would take it too far and kind of chew on his own leash too much, and he went on. When he attacked Carl Levin, you heard Levin in that clip just a moment ago --

ROTH: The ranking Democrat.

HOGE: Exactly. The ranking Democrat, who was against the war, and he was protesting when Galloway attacked him for being a war backer. That was the beginning of I think the sort of unraveling of George Galloway on the stand.

Finally, I noticed that the Charities Commission back in Britain is already wanting to investigate him all over again. Galloway told the Senate committee that he had been cleared by that commission. The commission, on hearing that, is saying we'd like to see some of the documents that you have in Washington.

BONE: There are -- Warren, as you say, there are a number of unanswered questions which are being investigated in Britain. This Senate dossier which includes documents from Iraq that were verified by Iraqi officials in captivity, including the vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, has been forwarded to Britain.

The thing that struck me as somebody who follows this rather closely is that there were two companies that allegedly handled oil allocations linked to Mr. Galloway. One was a company in Jordan owned by a man who funded his anti-sanctions campaign in Britain. Mr. Galloway was very up-front about that. The second one was a French company, and Mr. Galloway said he'd never even heard of that company and certainly not received any money from it.

So it seems to me that there are two halves of the allegations against Mr. Galloway. One of them he basically fesses up to and the other one he says he knows nothing about.

ROTH: But isn't it alarming that, look, the committee is saying senior Iraqi officials who, yes, may want better treatment, you never know what they're willing to say, but they're indicting Galloway. They're saying that he was receiving money as a reward from Saddam Hussein.

BONE: They're sitting there in their underwear indicting Galloway.

HOGE: I think there are two ways to look at this, James.

I think on the point where Galloway could not really answer questions about what the chairman of his own charity had been doing, I thought there he looked very defensive. But I think on the point he kept making, and making emphatically, he had the senators on the defense, which is to say you have my name having been signed by officials in Iraq, and you have former Iraqi officials saying yes, that was my name, but you cannot produce any proof that I ever received money.

BONE: The problem in all of these investigations is the money trail. You can't really indict somebody for criminal wrongdoing unless you find the money trail. In the case of George Galloway, nobody has found the money trail. In the case of Benon Sevan, even the Volcker commission, with a $30 million investigation, hasn't found the money trail.

The only people who are really going to crack these Oil For Food scandal cases are the criminal investigators. They're the only people with the power to subpoena bank accounts and actually go after the money and --

ROTH: But what good are these hearings? I mean, this is a committee that already issues a report citing Galloway, and then they have him come as a witness. It's kind of backwards. Was it grandstanding, Warren, by Coleman and the people in Washington?

HOGE: Well, remember, it was Galloway who suggested going there as a witness, Richard. He -- that wasn't the committee so much inviting him as Galloway standing up and realizing he had a chance to do some great grandstanding in Washington.

You saw the response he got at home when he got back there, in that film clip. That's what George Galloway was up to. He wasn't trying to persuade Americans. He was talking to his home audience.

BONE: And the other thing, Richard, remember, this committee's investigation was a lot broader than Galloway's. As Senator Coleman said, Galloway was small potatoes, and the major investigation in the last week has been into Russia and particularly in the Russian presidential administration and allegations that the Russian presidential administration, people connected to it, received money in at least one case as a pay off for defeating President Bush's opening gambit on Iraq when he first came into office.

ROTH: And also keeping track of another Oil For Food side angle, we've been talking about a judge put another 10-day injunction on Robert Parton, the official who resigned, the senior investigator with the Volcker panel. He is now not able to turn over papers, or they can't get --

BONE: What's interesting about that, Richard, is that for the first time Robert Parton has spoken in a court affidavit, and in that court affidavit, he says that the conclusions of the Volcker inquiry into Kofi Anna, the U.N. secretary-general, and his son, Kojo, were what he said was flawed. So that's the first time we have an official explanation of why he quit.

ROTH: And George Galloway was blunt with the Senate and trailing reporters. He obviously doesn't like writer Christopher Hitchins, who has admitted liking fine wine and more, but who wanted Galloway to show him proof that he had voluntarily offered to appear before the committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER HITCHINS, JOURNALIST: Just wondering if you brought copies of the letters and e-mails you sent to the committee.

GALLOWAY: This is a bloated, drink-sodden, former (INAUDIBLE) lunatic just walking around --

HITCHINS: Just enquiring, Mr. Galloway.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you asked that question?

HITCHINS: Yes, I have, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And?

HITCHINS: And I've begged the docent to have copies of the letters.

(CROSSTALK)

GALLOWAY: Go on and have another drink. Your hands are shaking so badly --

HITCHINS: Mr. Galloway --

GALLOWAY: Your hands are shaking so badly, you badly need another drink.

HITCHINS: This is wonderful.

GALLOWAY: You badly need another drink.

HITCHINS: Shall we go and have one now?

GALLOWAY: I don't drink.

HITCHINS: Are you inviting me?

GALLOWAY: You drink enough for both of us.

HITCHINS: Fine. You said that you contacted the committee by letter and by e-mail, asking to be heard. Did you bring copies of the letters with you, or the e-mails? Can we take it that had you claim to have written to the committee when you had not?

Shall we? Shall we? Mr. Galloway, you've insulted me now three times. If I look at all -- if I look --

GALLOWAY: You look a little shaky. You're a drink-soaked, bloated, former (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aren't you going to answer question?

HITCHINS: I think I had a fair question for you, Mr. Galloway.

GALLOWAY: I'm here to speak to the commission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONGRESSMAN TOM LANTOS (D-CA): And I for one would like to state for the record that I will oppose with all my might any attempt to replace Kofi Anna.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos defending U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan at another Congressional hearing this week, this one on United Nations reform.

Most of the others in the House of Representatives panel think there should be big change at the United Nations. Some wouldn't mind a change at the top.

The feature guest at the hearing was the chief of staff for Annan, Mark Malloch-Brown. Brown said the United Nations needs a transformation and that Annan has done more than any previous secretary-general towards that goal.

Another witness was on Capitol Hill for 12 years in a prior life, former Senator Tim Wirth, who now directs the U.N. Foundation. Wirth said strong U.S. leadership and patient diplomacy is what is needed at the United Nations to close differences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM WIRTH, U.N. FOUNDATION: You know what those endless discussion at the United Nations are about. You have to go and listen to all of that membership as if they are the most important people in the world. You have to sit and talk to them, you've got to put your arm around them, you've go to, you know, do everything you possibly can. You know that's the way you get something done, not dissimilar from here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: And that's how we get guests like Warren Hoge from the "New York Times" on our program, and along with James Bone, of the "Times of London."

Warren, the House of Representatives panel, led by Henry Hyde, once again they've got some new legislation on maybe threatening non- payment of dues and debt and whatever the United States might owe the United Nations, unless something happens.

HOGE: That's right. They're circulating a draft of legislation that would tie the payment of dues, or at last the direction the money would go in once it got here at the United Nations, to the United Nations reforming itself in a way that the United States Congress would think was the right way.

This comes in spite of the fact that Henry Hyde's committee has heard from a lot of people here at the United Nations, including Mark Malloch-Brown, saying that we've already launched our reforms here, we're asking for your support and your backing in conversation.

The Congress seems to be pretty determined right now to keep the heat on the United Nations and I think the United Nations is really on the defensive when it comes to dealing with the U.S. Congress, so much so that I hear around the corridors here at the United Nations now other members states, particularly smaller countries, third world developing countries, complaining rather bitterly that the U.N. leadership is spending all of its time these days trying to repair the American relationship at the expense of its relationship with all of the other countries here.

ROTH: James.

BONE: And the hot rumor around the United Nations at the moment is that Kofi Annan is considering stepping down in a big speech at the reform summit in September, his last chance to really go out on a high note, to regain the initiative.

I don't know whether I yet believe it, but a lot of people are talking about it, and some senior officials aren't ruling it out.

ROTH: Well, one of Annan's aides, Kieran Prendergst, since 1997, leading political affairs officer, is leaving. James, what's the story?

BONE: Well, Kieran Prendergst ran afoul of the Americans. Usually it is said that he ran afoul of the Americans because of what is called the Fallujiah letter, a letter the United Nations wrote to the Americans, the British and the Iraqis, imploring the Americans and the British not to attack Fallujiah when it was in rebel hands in Iraq.

Actually, the truth behind the Fallujiah letter is that Kieran Prendergst wanted a telephone call between Kofi Annan, the secretary- general, and the then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. And it was Kofi Annan himself who came up with the idea of a written letter on a Sunday, and rang Kieran Prendergst at home I'm told.

Now, we don't know who put that idea in Kofi Annan's head. It is true, however, the Kieran Prendergst has been the stick in the mud for many of the things the British and the Americans wanted to do in Iraq, and has on many occasions told them to do things which in many cases they then did later.

ROTH: All right, and finally, we need a little culture reporting here. Warren, you have a story running this weekend regarding the United Nations. A prior secretary-general of the United Nations.

HOGE: It has nothing to do with Oil For Food. This is a story about Dag Hammarskjold. This year is the centennial of his birth, and this is a story that says that WH Auden, the great poet who was called in to translate his book, "Markings," from the original Swedish, actually meddled with, fooled with, the translation and managed to get even his, Auden's own obsessions with a male lover, his anxieties over that, into the text of Dag Hammarskjold's book in English.

ROTH: Well, that is fascinating --

BONE: I wonder if that's the cause of the rumor's that always swirled around Dag Hammarskjold.

ROTH: That's interesting. We should continue to follow that story should there be any other further developments.

I'd like to thank our guests, James Bone, up on the top there, "Times of London. There at the bottom, Warren Hoge, of the "New York Times." Both gentlemen are based at the United Nations and at fine book stores, maybe, near you.

Coming up, what does Madonna have to do with a major political controversy in one Middle East country?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Madonna once acted in "Desperately Seeking Susan," but it's a diplomat's wife desperation that figures in an undiplomatic battle royal between key players in the Israeli Foreign Service.

Yes, that is Madonna here on DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. Believe it or not, the former "Material Girl" figures in an undiplomatic battle royal between key players in the Israeli Foreign Service.

Here's what's going on. Israel's ambassador to the United States is fighting for his job after Israel's foreign minister order his dismissal. But there is a lot more to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

The role of the foreign minister's wife and Madonna too, it's a big brouhaha in Israel, reported in New York by the "New York Post."

Here to bring us up to date now, David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of the "Jerusalem Post."

David, how would you describe this affair?

DAVID HOROVITZ, "JERUSALEM POST": It's an unseemly business, really. It started with -- there is a civil service investigation of the ambassador's wife for allegedly abusing the domestic staff at their home.

So the ambassador is in a bit of trouble. He is now alleging that the foreign minister -- now follow this carefully -- or maybe his wife, tried to get one of his aides fired. Why? Because this aide failed to setup a photo op for the foreign minister's wife with Madonna when she visited Israel last year.

The foreign minister denies this, says that he wasn't even in Israel himself, and that his wife, who is something of a socialite, could have setup her own photo op with Madonna if she wanted to.

And, you know, the ambassador says he's got it all on tape, and on it slathers.

ROTH: Is it true the Israeli Foreign Ministry controls all of the country's diplomatic postings except Washington, the ambassador there reports directly to Prime Minister Sharon?

HOROVITZ: Well, kind of.

The Foreign Ministry's least controlled envoy, I suppose, is the Washington envoy, but this particular ambassador, Danny Ayalon, was not appointed, as is usually the case, in a deal between this foreign minister and the prime minister but between the previous foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. So this foreign minister, Sylvan Shalom, doesn't really have any attachment to this ambassador. He hasn't actually fired him, but he kind of wants him to come home.

The ambassador already complained about the foreign minister and his wife to the Israeli attorney general, and that's almost unprecedented. That must have meant that the ambassador knew he was going to lose his job. We assume he's been offered something rather better when he comes back, but this is really in mid-air at the moment, and unseemly continuing.

ROTH: How typical is this episode of internal Israeli politics, which can be kind of bruising at times, right?

HOROVITZ: Well, it's a new one to have kind of Madonna involved in diplomatic spats, but unfortunately there are no shortages of sort of minor little brouhahas between foreign ministers, prime ministers and all sorts of other people.

We have a finance minister at the moment, Mr. Netanyahu, who very much wants to be the prime minister. Ariel Sharon doesn't want to give up that job. But that's kind of politics as usual. This is really an unusual one. Other ministers have been involved as well because there was another minister, who, by the way, also wants to be the prime minister, called Ahud Almert (ph), who did get a photo op with Madonna, which is even more annoying, of course, to the foreign minister, allegedly, except that the foreign minister says that he didn't want the photo op anyway.

ROTH: How is the Israeli public processing this?

HOROVITZ: With what I would hope you would realize would be some amusement, but a little bit of dismay as well.

To be slightly serious for a second, we're heading into a rather difficult summer for Israel. The Israeli government, Ariel Sharon, is about to enforce the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. This is an incredibly controversial policy. We've got a very sticky period coming up. And during that period it appears Israel's most important overseas diplomat and his foreign ministry are really not going to be talking to each other. That's pretty bad news.

So I think along with the humor, the Israeli public is probably a little bit disquieted by the egoism and the lack of seriousness of what appears to be going on at the top of the diplomatic hierarchy.

ROTH: Is Ariel Sharon going to settle this?

HOROVITZ: If I had to bet, I'd assume that the ambassador will not be long in this position, that foreign minister and prime minister will agree on another compromise candidate to take his place. The ambassador will get himself some kind of new job. The foreign minister will feel that he has prevailed, and we'll return to business as usual, until the next Madonna visit.

ROTH: What about Madonna? I mean, she is certainly through her interest in Kabala and Israel, has been, there, it seems, more than some of the Palestinian leadership in the search for peace. Why doesn't she perhaps go public and settle this?

HOROVITZ: Yes. Well, they made peace on the "West Wing," didn't they, just a few episodes back, but it hasn't seemed to be breaking out over here in reality just yet.

ROTH: All right. Well, we'll just have to "Cherish" our moments with David Horovitz, thank you very much for joining us. David is the editor-in-chief of the "Jerusalem Post." He's also the author of the book "Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism."

Prime Minister Sharon due in Washington this coming week. The soap opera may take a turn.

That is DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. Thanks for watching.

END

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