Having a bob each way

The Herald reports on the most amazing duplicity of the Australian government's involvement, via the AWB as previously reported, during Saddam's Iraq pre-invasion times:

"THE Australian Navy took command of the economic sanctions blockade against Saddam Hussein's Iraq at the same time Australia's wheat exporter, AWB, was increasing its illicit payments to the dictator's regime.

In January 2002 the Minister for Defence, Robert Hill, announced that Australia had taken command of the multinational force in the Persian Gulf under Captain Allan Du Toi. Three Australian navy vessels, including HMAS Kanimbla, Adelaide and Sydney joined the force aimed at preventing Saddam defying the United Nations-imposed economic blockage.

But while Australia funded the naval operation, the Volcker report on the UN oil-for-food scandal revealed that AWB agreed to increase hugely the trucking fees to transport its wheat inside Iraq. The fees on Australia's $1 billion wheat exports to Iraq were being syphoned off to the regime in violation of the sanctions.

The trucking fees were raised from $US10-$US12 a tonne to more than $US50 by mid-2002. Former AWB officials told the Herald this week that the hefty price rise would have rung alarm bells inside the AWB."

Read all about it.

When old Guambat first heard about the story, he said, "I've had a wee bit of experience in shipping commodities in bulk, and that small portal on the industry taught me that, generally, most shippers, especially the large ones, know every cent involved in the transport of the product and how it is justified and do a major job heavying the carriers to get costs down. But I have no knowledge of AWB or how it has operated and cast no aspersions, implicitly or explicitly." But that old Guambat is an ass-covering bootlick and what would he know, anyway?