The Guardian 22 February, 2006
AWB Inquiry: More chaff hits the fan
When Iraq announced last week that it was cancelling wheat imports from Australia, more chaff hit the fan. Australia’s wheat farmers have had a bumper crop this season, but with a glut of wheat world-wide, they have no one to sell it to. It was also revealed that non-executive directors of the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) were about to give themselves a pay rise of 33 percent (raising their annual fees from $1.2 million to $1.6 million) but when the AWB wheat bribes to Saddam Hussein were revealed the AWB chairman announced that such increases were "inappropriate".
Iraq will stop buying Australian wheat until at least the conclusion of the Cole inquiry into the bribery and corruption that involves government departments, Ministers and AWB representatives. No doubt if the inquiry allows the major players — including the government — off the hook, wheat farmers can forget any more sales of wheat to Iraq.
The big Australian oil companies that moved into Iraq following the US-led occupation would have paid bribes on a massive scale. Santos, Woodside Petroleum and BHP Billiton came together in a joint venture in 2004, signing a memorandum of cooperation with the Iraq Oil Ministry to prepare for oil and gas projects in the country. It has now been revealed that BHP was going to bribe Saddam Hussein’s regime with $US100 million for the right to explore Iraq’s oil fields.
Also that the company had paid for a $US5 million wheat shipment in 1996. The war is a profit bonanza for corporations, with the Australian-based oil companies tapping into Iraq’s oil resources while the occupation forces police and oppress the population. The Hyundai corporation also bribed the regime with a $US5 million dollar wheat deal, with the knowledge and consent of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Meanwhile, the new Defence Minister Brendan Nelson announced this week that Australian troops would stay in Iraq, under the guise of rebuilding the country but in reality protecting the obscene profits of those corporations operating there.