GALLOWAY ON CAPITOL HILL

Telegraph: Galloway Assault OnCapitol Hill

George Galloway confronted the American senators who have accused him of accepting oil allocations from Saddam Hussein yesterday in one of the most extraordinary and ill-tempered exchanges seen on Capitol Hill.

At one point the newly elected MP for Bethnal Green and Bow was accused of "evasion" and of choosing to ignore the questions that were being put to him.

Mr Galloway told the hearing room packed with 300 people: "You have nothing on me Ö other than my name on lists." Many of the lists had been "drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad", he said.

In a bass voice rising with indignation to fill the august chamber, Mr Galloway insisted that he had been "an opponent of Saddam when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas".