Australian PM says he never saw Iraq bribe warnings

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard said that when he sent troops into Iraq to help oust Saddam Hussein he had no idea that a government-backed company was bribing the dictator's regime.

Howard told an official inquiry that he never learned national wheat exporter AWB had breached UN sanctions with kickbacks to Baghdad worth 220 million US dollars until 2005, two years after the US-led invasion.

Amid tight security at a makeshift hearing room in Sydney's industrial court complex, Howard became the first Australian leader in almost a quarter of a century to be grilled at a public inquiry.

The prime minister was asked about a speech on March 13, 2003 -- a week before Australian troops joined the Iraqi invasion -- in which he condemned Saddam's corruption of a UN programme designed to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi civilians under sanctions.

"He has cruelly and cynically manipulated the UN oil-for-food programme, he has rorted (corrupted) it to buy weapons and support his designs at the expense of the well-being of his people," Howard said at the time.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060413/wl_mideast_afp/australiairaqunoilwheatjustice