Mark Steel: Trial by parish council would be more convincing

What I don't understand about Senator Norm Coleman is, if you're going to accuse someone of illegally dealing in millions of barrels of oil, you should at least have some evidence, even if it's made up. They'd be more convincing if they'd forged a complaint from George Galloway's neighbours about noise levels from his garden, that upon investigation turned out to be produced by a 50-foot high beam engine pumping 10,000 gallons of crude oil a day. And local residents had become alarmed at the amount of wildlife covered in tar, so they contacted Greenpeace, who discovered a 2,000-mile pipeline running from Basra to Galloway's shed.

What I don't understand about Senator Norm Coleman is, if you're going to accuse someone of illegally dealing in millions of barrels of oil, you should at least have some evidence, even if it's made up. They'd be more convincing if they'd forged a complaint from George Galloway's neighbours about noise levels from his garden, that upon investigation turned out to be produced by a 50-foot high beam engine pumping 10,000 gallons of crude oil a day. And local residents had become alarmed at the amount of wildlife covered in tar, so they contacted Greenpeace, who discovered a 2,000-mile pipeline running from Basra to Galloway's shed.

For a moment I wondered whether the hearing was a trick. And the plan was to ask, "Mr Galloway, have you ever used your contacts within oil-producing regimes to illegally profit from sales of oil, with no regard to the regime's record on human rights?" Then when Galloway said "No," they'd go, "Aha, then you must be a communist," and have him arrested.

The evidence they did come up with was so poor even Galloway must have been disappointed. The document with his name on it was "discovered" by the group who include Ahmed Chalabi, a man who has been convicted of corruption. It would have been more substantial if the Senator had yelled, "Furthermore, Mister Galloway, we have a statement signed by a Mister Jeffrey Archer, backed up by photographic evidence produced by a Mister Piers Morgan. And an affidavit from a man of no fixed abode, dictated on a bench outside Safeway's in Camden, who not only says you sold him oil, but also demanded, 'Who you looking at? Ay? Ay?'"

The main evidence revolves around the Duelfer report, which lists "Known Oil Voucher Recipients" paid by Saddam. And there is indeed the name of George Galloway. But the typeface is entirely different and much smaller than everything else, and written at an angle to the rest of the page. If a village fête committee produced anything so amateurish, there'd be mass resignations on the parish council.

But Senator Norm persisted. Perhaps he has inside information that, as the committee was about to write "George Galloway", the typewriter was blown up by a suicide bomber protesting against decadent Western fonts. Then, as they started with the new typeface, an earthquake jogged the typist and made the letters go squiggly.

Even then, the end of "Galloway" rolls into the next word. Surely the CIA should train their forgers to practise on colouring-by-numbers books. And only when trainees have shown they can do a whole page without going over the lines should they be allowed to move on to forging cases of illegal international oil dealing.

An insight into the methods of those who create these documents comes from Sajad Ahmad Ali, who described in the paper Al-Watan how "We forged this list of names and titles of people who got money from the Ministry of Information, the palace and the oil-for-food programme ... We steamed the papers, then dried them out so they would look old." It's almost quaint, the sort of thing they used to show you how to do on Magpie.

Surely with modern technology they could fit someone up more convincingly than this. Instead of steaming documents, couldn't they produce a forged loyalty card with G Galloway printed across the bottom, and a computerised monthly statement showing 15 million barrels of oil as the standard reward for regular customers, with an added 5 million as an "indefatigability bonus".

The bumbling nature of the set-up could be linked to the arrogance of the regime behind it. For example, Senator Norm has said, "God Bless America is a prayer, and George Bush is God's answer to that prayer." And he may be right, because for Bush to get elected twice certainly required some sort of miracle.

But following Galloway's performance before the senators, a common reaction has been, "Whatever you say about him, he was bloody good." So an unexpected consequence of the accusation may be he'll now be sought after as a contestant on reality shows.

And it would boost ratings, if there was a chance of seeing him in the diary room growling: "Let me tell you Big Brother, you stated categorically that two packets of biscuits would be forthcoming for today's luncheon. Now your spineless lickspittle nonentity of a disembodied voice informs us that it is to be withheld, in an action that, were it to be categorised as stinginess, would insult the stingy. We may be the ones deprived of our confectionary treat, but rest assured, Big Brother, when the housemates let their feelings on this issue be known, yours is the cookie that is destined to crumble."