US sabotaged Australian wheat deal in Iraq

[Barrett808]

US sabotaged Australian wheat deal in Iraq
Richard Baker
November 25, 2006

THE United States intervened to sabotage a huge wheat contract agreed upon by AWB and Iraq during a series of secret meetings in Cairo last year, less than two years after Australia joined America to topple Saddam Hussein.

Senior US officials in Baghdad complained to Iraqi Government ministers in January last year - 10 months before the United Nations exposed AWB's kickbacks to Saddam Hussein - after learning Australia had landed a $900 million wheat deal with Iraq.

Sources familiar with the AWB trip to Cairo last year said the US learnt of the deal after representatives from America's foreign agriculture service followed AWB executives around Cairo. In response to the US complaints, Iraq cancelled the AWB deal and called off a planned visit to Canberra by Iraq's then trade minister, Muhammed al-Jabouri, in February last year.

Details of the American's wheat intervention come as Commissioner Terence Cole, QC, handed his five-volume report into the Iraq wheat scandal to Governor-General Michael Jeffery at Admiralty House in Sydney yesterday.

The report is expected to say there was "no evidence" ministers or the department knew about AWB's corrupt payments to Saddam. The report will be made public early next week.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/us-sabotaged-australian-wheat-deal-in-iraq/2006/11/24/1164341401011.html

[acmavm]

1. Boy, this government will screw ANYONE, even their bestest buds.

[silverweb]

2. Not quite as simple as it appears.

It seems that AWB, the Australian wheat exporter, is not on the up and up, being involved in kickbacks defrauding the Australian people, etc: Read more _here_.

I'm not defending this maladministration by any stretch of the imagination and I don't disagree with your comment -- however, in this particular instance, U.S. intervention may have been appropriate.

[acmavm]

3. Okay, I'll give you that the AWB may not be the most ethical

government organization on the face of this planet.

But then, you tell me what government cabinet or organization in the United States would you trust right now? Let's go all the way back to the days shortly after the picture of bush** and Cheney and Powell and the boys in the Oval Office even before the election dust settled. What bunch of boys and girls in the bush** administration would you say are the most honest and ethical.

There obviously is no honor amongst this bunch of thieves.

[silverweb]

5. The leaders are corrupt to the core.

However, there are still plenty of honorable people working in various government jobs -- and just maybe someone was doing their job right and did a good thing in getting this AWB deal scuttled.

All I'm saying is that the current case does not appear to be just a clear-cut, simple matter of evil U.S. agents sabotaging an innocent Australian wheat deal.

[rocktivity]

4. Well, Haggard DID insist that he never "took" any meth...

could it be that we owe him an apology?

:evilgrin:
rocknation