■ We think it’s safe to assume that a regime with figures called “Chemical Ali” and “Dr. Germ” had WMD.
■ George Galloway, a showy Scottish Labour MP, has been a scourge of Anglo-American Iraq policy, denouncing Tony Blair and George W. Bush as “wolves.” Now he stands revealed as a leech. Iraqi files discovered by reporters from the Daily Telegraph and the Christian Science Monitor show that the fallen regime forked over big bucks to keep its advocate in clover. One document, signed by Saddam’s son Qusay, authorizes “a gratuity” of $3 million for Galloway’s “courageous and daring stands against the enemies of Iraq” (“Do this fast and inform me,” wrote Qusay in his own hand). Another memo, from the secret service to Saddam himself, said Galloway was getting cuts from contracts under the oil-for-food program. Galloway plans to sue for libel, accuses the papers of dealing in disinformation, and says he has “never met, to the best of my knowledge, any member of Iraqi intelligence.” Shades of Alger Hiss (who never knew “a man by the name of Whittaker Chambers”)?
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