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Howard claims ignorance of bribes

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, right, arrives to give evidence at an inquiry into the Australian Wheat Board in Sydney, Australia, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday that when he sent troops into Iraq to help oust Saddam Hussein he had no idea that a government-backed company was bribing the dictator's regime.

Howard told an official inquiry that he never learned national wheat exporter AWB had breached UN sanctions with kickbacks to Baghdad worth US$220 million until last year, two years after the US-led invasion.

Amid tight security at a makeshift hearing room in Sydney's industrial court complex, Howard became the first Australian leader in almost a quarter of a century to be grilled at a public inquiry.

The prime minister was asked about a speech on March 13, 2003 -- a week before Australian troops joined the Iraqi invasion -- in which he condemned Saddam's corruption of a UN program designed to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi civilians under sanctions.

"He has cruelly and cynically manipulated the UN oil-for-food program, he has rorted [corrupted] it to buy weapons and support his designs at the expense of the well-being of his people," Howard said at the time.

Asked yesterday if he knew at the time that an Australian company was involved in undermining UN sanctions, Howard replied: "Absolutely not."

The Australian opposition has charged that Saddam bought weapons to fight coalition troops with money diverted from the UN scheme, but Howard defended the lack of action against the AWB by saying he had never imagined such a company would act illegally.

"There was absolutely no belief anywhere in the government at the time that AWB was anything other than a company of great reputation," Howard told the packed hearing room.

"It had been involved in the wheat trade since the 1930s, it had not entered my mind that it could have acted corruptly," he said.
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