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 SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday his senior advisers did not alert him to warnings that Australia's monopoly wheat exporter was allegedly paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein in the discredited U.N. oil-for-food program.
Howard, who spent just 50 minutes on the stand, was the most senior of three government ministers to testify this week at a so-called Royal Commission into alleged bribes paid to Baghdad by the Australian Wheat Board — and all three denied being told of the multimillion dollar corruption until U.N. officials began investigating the company now known as AWB Ltd.
In his written statement, Howard said he is bombarded with some 68,000 cables each year from his foreign affairs and trade ministry and that four senior advisers vetted them and only told him about the ones they deemed important enough.
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