Australian Wheat Board update

by Jason Phelan

Australian Federal Government Ministers and Staffers were clearly warned in 2001 that Iraq was demanding ‘kickbacks’ under the UN oil-for-food program.

Concerns were raised by British diplomats, UN officials and the Norwegian head of the UN sanctions committee warning that Iraq was “blackmailing” companies and “demanding illegal commissions”.

These warnings were sent in the form of a diplomatic cable to the Prime Minister, John Howard, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, the Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, and intelligence specialists with the Office of National Assessments. This cable was kept from the Cole Inquiry until the last-minute.

These three ministers managed to evade questions on the content of this and other cables when they were called for questioning in front of the Cole Inquiry. In the last few days the Inquiry has received supplementary statements from these ministers claiming not to have read – or not to have recalled reading the cable. In Mr Downers case his own adviser recalled opening and forwarding the cable to the minister’s office. Mr Downers explanation to this apparent contradiction : “Having regard to this information, it may be that a hard copy of the cable was printed and distributed to me.” But said he was not aware of the “issues raised”.

Bronte Moules, first secretary at Australia’s UN mission wrote the four page cable, detailing confidential discussions in the Security Council about Iraq’s exploitation of the UN oil-for-food program. AWB was the biggest single supplier to the program. It is alleged AWB paid almost $300 million in ‘kickbacks’

Ms Moules cable also documented :

- “The UK said Iraq needed to … stop blackmailing companies by demanding surcharges.”

- “Iraq has, according to UN officials, begun demanding kickbacks and illegal commissions on contracts for humanitarian supplies.”

– Norway said “everybody knows about the kickbacks” but the lack of evidence in contracts seen by UN made it “difficult to address the issue directly”.

Other evidence to be presented to the inquiry yesterday included an admission from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre that it had identified “aberrant” payments by AWB to the Jordanian trucking firm Alia as early as July 2001.

Despite this evidence the Australian Federal Government still stands by claims that it did not learn of any link between AWN and Alia until Saddam’s fall in 2003.