British MP turns on US accusers over Iraqi kickbacks

The fiery left-wing politician came to Congress to defend his name against allegations he pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal funds from the UN Oil for Food program during Saddam Hussein's regime.

But Galloway said it was his American accusers who must answer for the "disaster" caused by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the deaths that have been seen since.

"I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq, and I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies," Galloway told a Senate panel.

"Everything I said about Iraq turned out to be right, and you turned out to be wrong, and 100,000 people have paid with their lives," he told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee.

He said US military action against Iraq was based on "a pack of lies".

Galloway vehemently denied ever receiving oil kickbacks from Saddam's regime.

He dismissed the hearing as "the mother of all smokescreens," saying the relentless focus on alleged UN wrongdoing by some US politicians deflected attention from the far bigger transgression of the US-led invasion.

"I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader," Galloway told the panel, calling the charges against him "utterly unsubstantiated and false".