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CANBERRA, Feb 12 (AFP): Australian Prime Minister John Howard launched a fierce campaign Sunday against critics, including the United States, who have accused the government of covering up its involvement in the payment of bribes to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Howard denied a former spy's claim that Canberra must have known national wheat exporter AWB was paying hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks, and took a sideswipe at criticism from the US, a close ally which Australia supported with troops in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
At the heart of the row is a UN report charging that AWB paid some 220 million US dollars in bribes to secure 2.3 billion dollars in wheat contracts with Saddam's Iraq under the now discredited 1996-2003 oil-for-food programmeme.
AWB holds a monopoly on Australian wheat exports and was a government-owned company until listing on the stock exchange in mid-1999.
Howard commissioned an inquiry into the allegations under UN pressure last month and evidence presented has led to mounting criticism of the government and calls from the opposition for ministerial heads to roll.
It also led to US Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of a senate investigations committee, complaining that he had been misled into dropping a US probe into AWB by representations from Australia's ambassador.
Coleman said evidence given to the inquiry suggested that government officials were "aware of and complicit in the payments of the illegal kickbacks".
In a political column released Sunday through the national news agency, Howard cautioned the US to look at its own agricultural practices before criticising Australia.
"US farmers receive about 20 billion US dollars in subsidies, and EU farmers around four times that amount, so any criticisms from the US about what might or might not have occurred with Iraq need to be seen in that context," he wrote.
Australian ministers have already accused the US-Australia's biggest rival in the wheat export business-of seeking commercial advantage from the AWB scandal, and Howard was apparently building on that point.
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