World's biggest miner BHP drawn into Iraq oil-for-food inquiry

[tocqueville]

SYDNEY (AFP) - The world's largest consolidated miner BHP Billiton has been drawn into an Australian probe into the UN oil-for-food scandal when the inquiry's head asked to be allowed to investigate the company's dealings in Iraq.

A commission of inquiry into the UN oil-for-food programme is investigating the payment of 220 million US dollars in kick-backs to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein by Australia's monopoly wheat exporter AWB.

Inquiry head, former judge Terence Cole, Friday requested that the government expand the probe so he could investigate the dealings of mining giant BHP Billiton in Iraq.

Cole said it was appropriate that he request permission to investigate "BHP Billiton Limited and its associated companies and Tigris Petroleum Corporation," over a multi-million dollar wheat shipment funded by BHP a decade ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060203/wl_afp/australiairaqunoil

220 million US dollars ? in kickbacks TO Saddam... ROTFLMAO.... Galloway, Pasqua you are damn amateurs....:sarcasm: