The empty suit speaks . . .

There was an article today in the Strib about the first indictment in the UN Oil for Food Program. Absolutely inexcusable fraud.

A federal prosecutor investigating corruption in the $64 billion oil-for-food program issued the case's first criminal charges against a U.N. official, accusing a former Russian procurement officer of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from companies doing business with the United Nations.

Alexander Yakovlev, 52, pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, said David N. Kelley, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. If convicted, he could face up to 60 years in prison.

The article goes on to mention a couple of additional names who may be indicted. The final report isn't in yet, but one name was conspicuous by its absence. George Galloway, the British MP that Normie so often and so viciously accused of fraud. This is the George Galloway of whom James Wolcott, one of Spot's favorite bloggers, wrote when Galloway appeared before Normie's committee:

Empty Suit Politician Walks into Propellor

Posted by James Wolcott

Based on what I saw on MSNBC (and congrats to them for going live), I would modestly venture that Norm Coleman and the Senate committee picked on the wrong guy when they picked on George Galloway (scroll down for "This Old Brit's"'s take). His rebuttal so exfoliated Coleman's short hairs that Fox News had to step in afterwards and downplay Galloway's rousing anti-Iraq war broadside as a rhetorical gambit.

God, does Galloway make our own representatives look mushmouthed and gutless.

05.17.05 11:48AM

Predictably though, Normie claimed - and is quoted in the article - that this one indictment and guilty plea prove he was right all along. We should ask MP Galloway what he thinks.

By the way, the amount of funds siphoned off by the indicted individual? About $900.000, hardly pocket change. Unless of course, you compare it to the eight billion dollars missing from the coalition provisional authority's coffers.