Londoners 'paid the price' for Iraq war: Galloway

Firebrand lawmaker George Galloway said Londoners had "paid the price" for Britain sending soldiers into Iraq and Afghanistan and warned there was more to come after bomb blasts in the capital Thursday killed at least 37 people. "We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain," Galloway said in a statement.

"Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings," said the Respect Party MP for east London's Bethnal Green and Bow said. Later, the left-wing politician told parliament the attacks were despicable but entirely predictable. "There was nothing unpredictable about this attack this morning. Despicable, yes, but not unpredictable. Entirely predictable and, I predict, not the last either.

Galloway earned a stinging rebuke from Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram, who accused his former colleague of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood," adding: "I think it is disgraceful." A fierce critic of the March 2003 US-led war to remove Saddam Hussein, Galloway was expelled that year from Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing Labour Party, which he had represented in parliament since 1987.

Dawn