SYDNEY, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- The enquiry into the Iraqi oil-for food scandal involving kickbacks by the Australian wheat exporter AWB Ltd. has adjourned.
On the 72nd day of the hearing, former AWB executive Charles Stott told the enquiry that he had no idea that fees paid to a Jordanian trucking company were being funneled to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
Earlier, government and opposition leaders clashed publicly over notes by a Trade Department official aired at the enquiry earlier, published in The Australian newspaper. The official, John Quinn, wrote the notes in 2004 mentioning "damning material" on the kickbacks paid by AWB for wheat contracts to Iraq under the UN's oil-for food program.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that he had never seen the notes and they were taken after the government was informed about the scandal in March 2004.
The Labor opposition's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, says the government "cannot keep pretending it did not know." He said the government had ignored 21 sets of cabled warning about AWB's activities.
