On Jan. 11, 2007, Amb. Peter W. Galbraith testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arguing against the strategy which would become the surge and instead advocating for the tripartite division of Iraq. From the transcript of the hearing:

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much. Ambassador Galbraith.
AMB. PETER GALBRAITH: Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, thank you for the invitation to testify before this committee on alternative strategies toward Iraq. It’s a special privilege for me to be here since the committee was my professional home for 14 years, and it is here where I had a great deal of my education on Iraq, as some of the more senior members of the committee may recall. I have submitted a detailed statement together with a one-page summary of my plan and I hope that they will be included in the record of these hearings.
SEN. BIDEN: Without objection they will be.
AMB. GALBRAITH: And before I begin, I was asked by the committee staff just to clarify my relationship with the Kurdistan regional government. I’ve sent an e-mail on that, but as described in my book, I’ve been friends with the Kurdish leaders and for that matter other Iraqis for a very long period of time. But I am not in a paid relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

This we now know to be untrue. Perhaps Galbraith can convince himself that he did not have to acknowledge a relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government because his consulting relationship was with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic party. When it comes to violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, however, it doesn’t matter if Galbraith worked for the “government” or just a foreign political party or foreign politician.

It’s that last sentence which can haunt Ambassador Galbraith. Despite what Ambassador Galbraith told Senator Biden, Galbraith now acknowledges that he had entered into a financial relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government with regard to the Tawke oil field. Senator Biden is no longer chairman, of course, but a willingness to turn a blind eye to witnesses lying shows disregard for the institution and the law.