Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced he will testify today at an inquiry into allegations that Australia's wheat exporter paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
"The Cole Commission of Inquiry has requested that I appear at its hearings," Howard said in a statement yesterday. "As I have said previously, I am happy to do so."
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Tuesday became the second minister to appear before an independent inquiry being chaired by retired judge Terence Cole which is examining whether the AWB (formerly known as the Australian Wheat Board) paid US$220 million in kickbacks to Saddam under the UN's oil-for-food program.
Howard will become the first Australian prime minister to testify at such a high-level inquiry since Labour leader Bob Hawke appeared at an inquiry into the country's intelligence agencies in 1983.
Howard also submitted a sworn statement to the inquiry on Tuesday. It was not published, but Howard will be questioned on its contents when he appears this morning.
He is expected to be questioned by John Agius, the inquiry's lead lawyer, and by lawyers representing AWB executives.
Officials in Howard's center-right government have repeatedly denied knowing that AWB -- the largest supplier of humanitarian goods under the UN program -- was making the alleged payments.
Downer and Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, who testified on Monday, have said they do not recall seeing numerous diplomatic cables that warned the AWB could be paying kickbacks.
Cole said on Tuesday the ministers were being questioned because any evidence that the government knew about corruption could be used as a defense by AWB executives if they are found to have deliberately paid kickbacks.
Peter Costello, the deputy leader of Howard's ruling Liberal Party, said the prime minister was testifying because he was true to his word that the inquiry would be transparent.
"Nobody in the government is hiding," Costello said.
Having ministers go into the witness box and "submit themselves to cross examination is, I think, an indication as to the fact that the government is being fully transparent," he said.
Influential national broadsheet The Australian newspaper said in an editorial yesterday that Vaile and Downer "had little to offer but further denials, pleas of ignorance and buckpassing."
Downer's testimony that his department did a professional job in the face of dozens of warnings that AWB was breaking sanctions "just adds weight to the unavoidable conclusion that the implementation of Australia's foreign policy is a farce," the editorial said.
"Better should be expected from the prime minister when he appears before the inquiry tomorrow," it said.
The Sydney Morning Herald said that Downer "has been exposed as sloppy and negligent in handling Australia' responsibilities to uphold the trade sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq even as he worked toward invading it."
He had been exposed as "driving his portfolio like Mr. Magoo, jauntily and haphazardly, giggling blithely as he traversed impossible risks," the newspaper said, referring to a blind cartoon character.
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