Australians to Testify at Kickbacks Probe

By The Associated Press 
April 7, 2006
Source: The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Australia-Oil-For-Food.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Two of the Australian government's most senior ministers will be called to testify next week at an inquiry into a wheat exporter's alleged multimillion dollar kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, a lawyer said Friday.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, who also is trade minister, will appear at the inquiry into Australian involvement in corruption of the discredited U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

''It is proposed that the inquiry will call Mr. Vaile on Monday and call Mr. Downer to give evidence on Tuesday,'' said John Aigus, the chief lawyer at the inquiry.

The two ministers will be questioned on what they knew about the Australian Wheat Board's payments to the Iraqi regime. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister John Howard said he expected Downer and Vaile to testify at the inquiry.

Howard's conservative government, a key supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, is becoming increasingly mired in the scandal and two senior ministers giving testimony would be a major embarrassment.

So far, however, the inquiry does not appear to have damaged the fourth-term government's popularity.

Both Downer and Vaile this week sent written statements to the inquiry, which is headed by a retired judge. The statements have not been made public.

''I expect that they will give evidence based upon the statements,'' Aigus said. ''There are one or two matters I wish to take up with them.''

At issue is whether Australia's monopoly wheat exporter, now known as AWB Ltd., knowingly paid up to $222 million in bribes through the Jordanian trucking company Alia, half-owned by the Iraqi government, to win lucrative contracts. The money then was allegedly diverted to the former Iraqi dictator, according to a United Nations report issued last year.

According to the U.N., AWB was the largest single supplier of humanitarian goods under the oil-for-food program, selling 6.8 million tons of wheat to Iraq and receiving payments from the U.N. of more than $2.3 billion from 1997 to 2003.

In February, AWB managing director Andrew Lindberg resigned amid mounting evidence suggesting he and some of his senior colleagues approved and later attempted to cover up AWB's dealings with Alia.

Uhr said the ministers' answers to questions at the inquiry would determine if they would follow Lindberg.

''I think it's too early to talk about resignation. We just have to wait and see how they respond,'' he said.

The judge, Terence Cole, is due to wrap up his inquiry in June. He does not have the power to file charges but can recommend prosecuting officials or executives if they are found to have broken Australian laws.

Senior AWB officials have not denied making the payments to Alia, but some have suggested they had no reason to believe the trucking fees were bogus or that they violated sanctions.

The opposition Labor Party has branded the AWB affair the ''wheat for weapons'' scandal -- saying the AWB helped fund Saddam's weapons build-up and accusing Howard's government of ignoring the practice.

The government rejects that and says that even though its intelligence agencies knew of Saddam's scam, they did not know AWB was involved.

The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996-2003, allowed Iraq to sell limited and then unlimited quantities of oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was launched to help ordinary Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

But Saddam, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, corrupted the program by awarding contracts to -- and getting kickbacks from -- favored buyers.