Australian Prime Minister John Howard agreed Monday to testify at an inquiry into sanctions-busting bribes paid to Saddam Hussein's Iraq as his government was dragged deeper into a growing scandal.
The inquiry is investigating the payment by national wheat exporter AWB of 220 million US dollars in kickbacks to obtain 2.3 billion dollars in contracts under the UN's oil-for-food programme.
Howard's revelation that he had been asked to provide a written statement to former judge Terence Cole, who is presiding over the inquiry, came on the day Trade Minister Mark Vaile appeared before it.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is due to follow Vaile into the witness box on Tuesday. They are the first senior ministers to be called to account by a commission of inquiry in more than 20 years.
Howard said he would also be prepared to appear personally if asked to do so. Senior counsel assisting the inquiry, John Agius, said the prime minister could appear as soon as Thursday.
The inquiry has heard evidence that the government was warned repeatedly that AWB was paying huge bribes to Baghdad for years before Australia joined the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam.
The opposition Labour Party has accused the government of helping fund Iraq's purchases of weapons which were later turned on coalition troops.
Vaile, who is also deputy prime minister, said he was not told about the kickbacks until March 30, 2004, when the UN announced an inquiry into corruption in its oil-for-food programme.
The minister, who had to negotiate a media scrum outside the hearing, told the commissioner he was "surprised" he was not alerted to warnings six years ago about irregularities in AWB's contracts.
In a written statement to the inquiry he addressed 21 diplomatic cables about suspected irregularities in AWB contracts. Each time he said: "I have no recollection of receiving or reading this cable."
AWB holds a monopoly on Australian wheat exports and was a government-owned company until listing on the stock exchange in mid-1999.
Howard said the commissioner had asked him to provide a written statement "in relation to certain specified matters" by Tuesday afternoon and that if asked to appear personally at the inquiry "I will be happy to do so".
"I've said all along that this is an utterly transparent process, which is not protecting the government, which is designed to get to the truth of this matter.
"I will answer questions under oath and they will be truthful answers," he said.
The questions facing the ministers focus on what they knew about the kickbacks paid by AWB and when they knew it.
They have maintained previously that they were either unaware of specific warnings, believed the charges were concocted by competing wheat exporters in Canada and the United States, or accepted denials by AWB executives.
A senior UN official who vetted the oil-for-food contracts with Iraq, Felicity Johnston, said she had warned Australian officials six years ago that AWB might be breaching sanctions.
Johnston, who will give evidence to the inquiry, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the ministers had a responsibility under international law to ensure their nationals complied with UN sanctions.
Howard told reporters he rejected her statement. "I don't accept the interpretation placed on the government's obligations by the lady in question," he said.
The inquiry has heard that the bribes were funnelled to Baghdad through a Jordanian front company, Alia, as trucking fees and were paid out of inflated prices claimed for the wheat.
The UN programme, which ran from 1996 to 2003, allowed Iraq to export a limited amount of oil to buy food and medicine to lessen the impact of sanctions on civilians, with the money passing through UN accounts.
A UN report found last year that some 2,000 companies world-wide were implicated in corrupting the programme, with AWB paying the biggest bribes.
The commission of inquiry is examining whether Australian law was broken by the wheat exporter and whether any of those connected with the company should be prosecuted.
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