CANBERRA, Australia, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The Australian newspaper reported Friday that the country's wheat sales to Iraq were used to illegally funnel money to the Saddam Hussein regime.
AWB, formerly the Australian Wheat Board, was apparently one of more than 2,000 companies and individuals worldwide caught up in the oil-for-food corruption scandal that has rocked the United Nations, which was in charge of the program.
The scams that allowed Saddam to wiggle around economic sanctions reportedly reaped more than $1 billion for him.
The newspaper said AWB sold Iraq about 10 million tons of wheat, which the sanctioned Saddam regime was allowed to sell oil to pay for. But the sales contracts, negotiated directly with the Iraqi Grains Board, stipulated an overpriced Jordanian trucking company be used for distributing the wheat in Iraq.
The trucking company, Alia, would charge the United Nations an inflated price and then channel some of the extra funds to the Saddam government.
AWB said Thursday it had "fully cooperated" with the international investigation and did not knowingly pay monies to the former regime.
