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Journalist John Casey complained in an earlier Spectator article that he had been kept off the Galloway flight to Iraq by the UK Foreign Office. Hain replies in the current (1 April) issue on p.28. He says he asked the UN sanctions committee to approve a flight with 29 passengers, which it did. However, "To my surprise, Galloway had announced the cancellation of the flight a few hours earlier on the spurious pretext that some routine questions from the committee were 'illegal.' John Casey complains that he was turfed off the flight by the reduction in numbers I had agreed with Galloway. He is in good company. Galloway droppped all the doctors and humanitarian experts, too, in favour of journalists and anti-sanctions compaigners" (journalists except John Casey, evidently - jv). Later on, we learn from Hain that "there is a massive and entirely unconditional humanitarian programme" to help Iraq, and that Kofi Annan says that the 'programme has provided substantial asistance to address pressing humanitarian needs'. Moreover, "there is no limit on Iraqi oil sales; Iraq is one of the world's biggest oil exporters" and "no-one starves in that part of Iraq where Saddam's writ does not run but the same sanctions apply." -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi