Senator Asks for Probe of Australian Wheat Board 
By Reuters 
May 23, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-trade-wheat-australia-usa.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday called for a probe into the Australian Wheat Board's alleged violations of the United Nations oil for food program, saying the Bush administration had not heeded the concerns of America's wheat farmers.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa wrote to the U.S. Agriculture Department Inspector General seeking an independent review after letters to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman earlier this year failed to produce any action, a spokesman for Harkin's office said.
``AWB's kickbacks lined the pockets of Saddam Hussein and continued after the fall of his government. That money should have gone to feed hungry Iraqis through the U.N. oil for food program,'' Harkin said in a statement.
``We need to find out who benefited from these kickbacks and whether there's a way to recover the funds and return them to the Iraqi people.''
Harkin asked Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns in January to reinstate a ban on AWB from USDA's export credit programs. In April, the senator asked Portman to probe whether the AWB had violated U.S. trade law or World Trade Organization rules.
``We have not seen any movement on any of this...so the time is right for an independent investigation,'' Dave Townsend, Harkin's spokesman and Democratic press secretary for the Senate Agriculture Committee, told Reuters.
AWB, formerly known as the Australian Wheat Board, was among several companies accused of making illicit payments in a recent UN investigation of Iraq's oil for food program. It allegedly paid some $222 million in connection with humanitarian food purchases under the UN-administered program.
Australia is holding its own inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court judge Terence Cole, into the allegations. A report is due at the end of June. After several months of public hearings, the inquiry has released AWB documents that show it was aware it could have breached U.N. sanctions.
A U.S. trade official who asked not to be named said that a U.S. probe would be premature because Australia's inquiry ``has subpoena powers and has called some of the highest officials of the Austalian government to testify. It ought to have the latitude to do its job without us weighing in at this time.''
The Cole inquiry has declassified Australian diplomatic cables warning of possible AWB kickbacks, which Harkin said showed that top level Bush administration officials sought to help the Australian government ``rein in'' U.S. wheat industry officials who were questioning AWB's transactions.
``America's wheat farmers deserve to know why their questions about AWB were not investigated by the Bush administration,'' Harkin said. ``In this instance, the administration appears to have sided with AWB rather than American farmers.''
When USDA originally suspended credit to AWB, the Australian group accused its rival in global wheat trade, U.S. Wheat Associates, of pressuring the government. The two groups are vying for sales to Iraq in the post-Saddam Hussein era.
``We think there are concerns on the part of American farmers that still need to be addressed. We are happy to see these kinds of proposals coming out,'' USW President Alan Tracy told Reuters.
No one from USDA was available to comment.