Australia: Labor attacks Howard from the right over “oil-for-food” scandal

Speaking at the National Press Club last week, Labor leader Kim Beazley had promised the “most aggressive parliamentary interrogation” the government had experienced in its decade in office, declaring that the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) affair typified the “immorality and corruption besetting this government”.

But when parliament convened, the best the Labor Party could muster were accusations of “gross negligence” and “failure to investigate” while committing itself to “hold it [the government] accountable for the remainder of this parliament.” The reason the ALP could lay a hand neither on Howard nor any of his ministers lies in its fundamental support for the invasion of Iraq and the continued occupation of the country.

Documents produced at the wheat scandal have revealed, at least partially, some of the sordid motives for the war. At the same time the Howard government was attacking the Saddam Hussein regime for refusing to comply with UN sanctions—citing this as a reason for military action—the Australian wheat marketing agency was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the Iraqi government in defiance of UN sanctions in order to secure lucrative contracts.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) approved 41 AWB contracts worth $2.29 billion through the “oil-for-food” program before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. By charging up to $US50 a tonne higher than international market prices, the AWB transferred $290 million to the Iraqi regime, thinly camouflaged as trucking fees paid to a Jordanian-Iraqi transport company, Alia.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/awb-f09.shtml