The Cole inquiry in Australia into the AWB kickbacks scandal has been told by numerous diplomats that they were aware of allegations that Saddam Hussein had corrupted the UN oil-for-food program, but no one ordered an investigation.
In statements made to the inquiry, it seems that senior staff around the world were warned about kickbacks in 2000. However, no one acted because they believed that there was no evidence that AWB was involved and AWB denied being corrupt.
AWB paid over $290M in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime through a Jordanian trucking company, Alia.
Australian diplomat Bronte Moules reportedly sent several diplomatic cables raising his concerns about corruption to officials in Canberra in 2000. However, strange as it may seem, very few people could recall reading them.
Shameful!
1 comment:
The "kick backs" you speak of are not so shameful if you understand the many complexities of my region and the way in which we chose to do business.
This "kicking back" could be easily confused with barter. Let’s say I want to build a mosque so that I may say to my Shiite countrymen, "look how shiny this new mosque is!" This helps me to keep them happy and not doing the Iranian spying or worse.
But then I don't have money for sick children in the hospitals, so I say to Mr. International Politician (in this case your AWB person), "here have some cash for a nice holiday, now please look the other way."
You see it is a form of barter not “back kicking.” Speaking of bartering, you will enjoy my new blog it is all about my trial...
the SaddamDump.com
if you like it please leave a comment for me or send me an email.
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