Posted on 02/14/2006 1:23:58 PM PST by naturalman1975
The real lesson of the AWB scandal is that it proves Saddam was growing more powerful and the dangerous dictator had to go.
THIS overhyped AWB wheat scandal is turning into a media scandal as well, and one that costs farmers plenty.
Some reporters seem so frantic to believe the Howard Government approved $290 million of AWB bribes for Saddam Hussein that evidence -- or lack of it -- hardly seems to matter.
Nor does the damage to the country, which Iraq suspended this week from tendering for wheat contracts worth $800 million a year.
Who can blame the Iraqis for being suspicious? Consider these recent gotcha headlines in our broadsheet newspapers: "Canberra knew of kickbacks" and "Wheat whistle blown in 2003"?
You'd swear Prime Minister John Howard and his ministers had been caught with their hands in the silo, and that we now had proof they knew all along the AWB was bribing Saddam.
But of course even Labor now admits, two weeks later, there is no such proof at all, which is why Opposition Leader Kim Beazley today argues not that the Government did know about the bribes, but should have. Big difference, and one that puts the lie to those headlines.
But were there any apologies for this "mistake"? Instead, last week came more hotly panting reports, now making Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile seem in on the graft: "Vaile 'met kickback executives' " and "Day Vaile 'met star wheat witness' ".
Yeah, sure. It turns out Vaile merely gave a speech in Melbourne five years ago, and in the packed audience were AWB and BHP executives implicated in the alleged corruption. This is what's called a "meeting".
Is this reporting or lynching? From the Fairfax papers in particular I hear the roar of yet another get-Howard pack attack that's all rabies but no bite. No wonder the public is yawning.
Even had Vaile singled out these "kickback executives" for a chat after his speech, how likely is it that one would have grabbed him and said, "minister, I want you to know we're breaking your law against paying bribes, and also breaking the United Nations' sanctions you wanted against Saddam"?
Indeed, the evidence to the Cole inquiry so far -- although this may yet change -- has tended to show the opposite: the AWB tried to keep its dirty deals secret. Whether a complacent Government did enough to check on it is something else, and inquiry chief Terence Cole may well get out his elephant gun.
But I doubt this would be the result reporters at the inquiry pant for. Indeed, the barracking of some is making AWB witnesses there feel like walk-on villains in a shoot-the-bad-guy pantomime.
This may explain why Paul Lacava, SC, barrister for AWB executive Charles Stott, appealed last week to Mr Cole for help.
"A number of times this morning, Commissioner, our client has been asked questions, by both yourself and my learned friend, Mr Agius, which have been met with laughter from the press gallery," Lacava protested.
"I ask you to ask the press to remain quiet, so that the witness can give his answers -- he's come along here to be truthful and helpful -- without being held to ridicule and laughter by the press gallery."
Some say much of that derision actually came from public spectators, but Lacava seems certain journalists there are not just reporting but heckling.
So it's no wonder that missing in much of the coverage is a sense of perspective -- which would reveal that the AWB's alleged crimes aren't quite hanging offences, and that the real villain is Saddam Hussein.
This is not bribery in which the AWB paid Saddam with its own cash. Instead, the AWB paid inflated costs for trucking its wheat into Iraq, using a Jordanian company connected to the regime, and had it all paid by the UN's oil-for-food program, in which UN officials supposedly ensured Iraq's oil money was spent on food, not weapons.
Nor was the AWB alone in feeling forced to pay Saddam's thieves in this way to do business. More than 2000 companies did likewise.
What's more, the AWB did not receive any bribes itself. But we do have the names of scores of politicians, political cronies, activists and businessmen who allegedly did pocket Saddam's cash, including some suspiciously close to the anti-war presidents of France and Russia. But where are the inquiries into them? We also know the head of the UN's oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, and other UN officials were likewise on the take. The AWB was not the dirtiest angel in this UN-run heaven.
It would also be fair to ask exactly what option the AWB had at times but to pay.
One of the deals most probed by the Cole inquiry involves the AWB agreeing in 2002 to pay Saddam's regime an extra $2 million to accept a shipload of its wheat, with more secret cash to follow.
Yes: bad. Yes: this was money that could have been used to buy weapons to use against our own soldiers.
But here's the but. The AWB agreed to this only after having a huge shipment of wheat left floating off Iraq, banned from unloading for the dodgy reason it was contaminated by "iron filings".
If you were an AWB boss, what would you do? Take back the wheat at a big loss (and leave Iraq short of food) or save the deal by agreeing to the regime's demands for bribes that would be paid with Iraqi money anyway?
The AWB made the wrong choice, paying off the tyrant and trashing our business reputation. But how many businessmen would have felt free to be pure?
This illustrates the real lesson from the scandal -- that Saddam had to go.
If you won't hear that from me, hear instead Kim Beazley, who in trying to skewer the Government over the AWB case accidentally managed to put the main arguments for toppling Saddam.
"Can you think of another scandal where $300 million has gone to somebody who runs an oppressive regime, may have been using it to build weapons of mass destruction, was using it to support suicide bombers?" he told the ABC's Insiders.
And there you have it: one of the key justifications for the war in Iraq, delivered by one of its noisiest opponents.
As Beazley indicates, the sanctions were so riddled with corruption that even nice Australian exporters were giving Saddam bribes that he "may have been using to build weapons of mass destruction" and to pay terrorists. If not then, then later.
The sanctions to control Saddam were crumbling, and his danger was growing. He had to go.
And that's the real lesson of the AWB scandal. I agree: a politician must pay for what went on. But the politician I'm thinking of is Saddam, and not Howard at all.
What is the AWB scandal?
Obviously not "the" AWB in the USA (Assault Weapons Ban).
Australian Wheat Board - a private company that has a virtual monopoly on wheat sales from Australian farmers to the world. Australia has always exported significant amounts of wheat to Iraq even during the sanctions (as a basic foodstuff it was more or less exempt from sanctions) and it has emerged that the Australian Wheat Board paid incentives - whether they were bribes or not depends on some fine points of law - to Iraqis to get their wheat through. The scandal basically revolves around some people claiming the government knew this was happening and turned a blind eye to it. So far there's no proof of that.
Interesting. Thank you.
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