Briton seeks to clear name in US on Iraq scandal

British parliamentarian George Galloway yesterday agreed to testify before a US Senate panel "with both barrels" to dispute allegations Saddam Hussein awarded him the right to buy oil.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a new report on fraud in the now-defunct UN oil-for-food humanitarian programme for Iraq, released documents saying Mr Galloway got rights to 20 million barrels in oil, personally approved by ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

The same 96-page report said Charles Pasqua, the former French interior minister and now a senator, got 11 million barrels. Both men denied the allegations, which have surfaced earlier, but with less documentation.

"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," Mr Galloway said in London. "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'," Mr Galloway said.

The Senate plans to hold a hearing on Tuesday and "there will be a witness chair and microphone available for Mr Galloway's use," said a spokesman for Senator Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republic, who chairs the panel.