Shameful Aussie Corporate War Profiteering

Corporate war profiteering is nothing new, but our "coalition of the willing" partners have dipped their beaks too, according to Corporate Watch:

"United Nations sanctions against Saddam Hussein may have failed to end his regime but they succeeded in enriching both the Iraqi dictator and corporations able to manipulate the scandal-ridden world body's Oil-for-Food program. Among the profiteers was the Australian Wheat Board, a former state-owned monopoly, which funneled $A290 million (U.S. $208,887,000) into Saddam's coffers even as the “Coalition of the Willing” was preparing for invasion.

The Oil-for-Food program (OFF)--intended to punish and isolate Saddam while supplying food and medicine to ordinary Iraqis--accomplished neither objective. The Bush administration added that failure, and revelations of endemic corruption within the program, to his shifting case for war, after the danger of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction evaporated as a legitimating cause.

But while U.S. French, Russian, and African politicians, businessmen and companies benefited from Saddam's profiteering, the program's worst corruptor was the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), the largest importer of food into Iraq under Oil-for-Food.

The growing scandal has rocked Australia over the past few weeks as government hearings exposed a pattern of outright fraud by the AWB. Ironically, the same Australian wheat company officials who benefited before the war were appointed by the Americans after the invasion to help run the ministry of agriculture, where they profited handsomely once again.

"The AWB is not the Australian government, nor is it a nonprofit organization made up of hardworking Aussie farmers," Mr. Tracy said. "It is a vast independent multinational corporation that uses its monopoly control of Australian export wheat supplies to compete unfairly against American farmers."

Australia, the United States and Canada are the three most powerful wheat producing countries in the world. The three countries, steadfast allies on other fronts, fight bitterly over access to wheat markets.

Mr Howard's government privatized its monopoly wheat export agency in 1999. The Australian Wheat Board, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange under the ticker AWB, continues to be the only exporter of Australian wheat. Its executives are some of the most powerfully connected men in the country.


REAPING THE HARVEST

It was clear from the outset that the invasion of Iraq would bring its own opportunities for profiteering, but Australia had already been profiteering in Iraq for years.

Even as George Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and British Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared their three peoples for war, AWB funneled $A290 million (U.S. $208,887,000) worth of bribes into Saddam Hussein's coffers. The graft, which continued until just months before the invasion, bought Australia access to the Iraqi wheat market and functioned to exclude the United States, Australia's most virile rival in the global wheat industry."

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