Fed: Vaile assures US that AWB inquiry is above board

AAP General News (Australia)
02-02-2006
Fed: Vaile assures US that AWB inquiry is above board

CANBERRA, Feb 2 AAP - Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile has assured furious American
senators that Australia is doing its best to get to the bottom of the Iraqi wheat scandal.

The head of a US Senate inquiry into illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's regime has
called for Australia's current and previous ambassadors to explain an apparent attempt
to cover up kickbacks paid to the deposed dictator by wheat distributor AWB.

US Senator Norm Coleman has written to the current ambassador to the US, Dennis Richardson,
asking him to explain the Howard government's role in the AWB affair.

He said he was now "deeply troubled" by the representations of former ambassador Michael
Thawley at an October 2004 meeting where he unequivocally dismissed claims AWB was making
illicit payments to Saddam's regime.

But Mr Vaile urged the Americans to wait for the outcome of an Australian probe, the
Cole inquiry, into the AWB affair.

"I can assure our colleagues in America that that inquiry is being conducted fully,
transparently and openly," Mr Vaile told ABC radio in Rockhampton today.

Commissioner Terence Cole will make a statement tomorrow about the scope of the inquiry's
terms of reference.

The federal government has been criticised for giving Mr Cole narrow terms of reference
which allow him to consider only the actions of AWB and two other small companies under
the UN's oil for food program in Iraq.

The terms of reference do not allow him to make findings against the government.

However, Prime Minister John Howard has said the government would consider expanding
the terms of reference if Mr Cole requested it to do so.

A spokesman for Mr Howard today said the question of extending the terms of reference
was hypothetical at this stage.

AAP mfh/sb/hn/sd

KEYWORD: AWB FEDERAL

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