Fed: US Senator asks did AWB breach WTO or US laws

AAP General News (Australia)
04-11-2006
Fed: US Senator asks did AWB breach WTO or US laws

(EDS: Reissuing to add attribution in par 4)



CANBERRA, April 11 AAP - A US Democrat Senator has asked for an investigation into
whether Australia's wheat exporter breached World Trade Organisation or US laws during
the Iraq oil for food program.

The Cole Inquiry is currently investigating allegations that AWB paid $300 million
in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime during the United Nation's oil for food program.

A spokesman for US Senator Tom Harkin, a key member of the US Senate Agricultural committee,
has pushed for an investigation into whether AWB breached US or WTO laws.

"Senator Harkin and a group of Democrats wrote to the United States trade representative
Rob Portman asking that a determination be made on whether AWB violated US or WTO trade
rules," spokesman Dave Townsend told ABC Radio.

He said the group had yet to hear back.

Mr Townsend said the Cole inquiry had shown there was a link between the Australian
government and AWB, but it was unclear wheat minister's knew about the scandal.

"It's unclear who may have known exactly what and when," he said.

"I think it's safe to say at least some parts of the Australian government were aggressively
lobbying people here in Washington to discredit any claims that AWB was bribing the Saddam
Hussein regime,

"And so it appears that there is at least some link there between the Australian government
and AWB."

Senator Harkin has also claimed that the US government helped advise the Australian
government on how to deal with the AWB scandal.

"Some of the documents that have come out of the Cole Inquiry have shown that upper
level Bush officials helped advised the Australian government on kind of how to quash
the growing scandal of AWB," Mr Townsend said.

"Senator Harkin is rather troubled by the Bush administration's inaction on this."

Mr Townsend said the question Senator Harkin wanted the Cole inquiry to ask was did
US wheat farmers lose business because AWB was paying kickbacks to Iraq.

"The crucial question for US wheat farmers is are they getting a fair deal and were
they cheated out of markets whether it be the through the UN Oil for Food program or anything
that transpired afterwards," he said.

AAP klw/it/jlw

KEYWORD: AWB US (REISSUING)

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