AWB executives could face charges under Australia's anti-terror laws, but what about those Footprints left by the Australian Government?

In a sensational final day of the official inquiry into the inquiry into AWB paying millions of dollars in bribes to Saddam Hussein, lawyers have flagged that the Australian wheat agency's illicit payments could result in anti-terror charges, reports The Age.

The Iraqis wanted advice and equipment for a program of 100 reinforced concrete bunkers they hoped to build. An AWB manager, Mr Borlase wrote: "The bunkers will have cement walls and floors so they are actually designed for burying the Kurds - under the cement?"

"They intend to build them with fumigation capability so the mind boggles as to whether they are fumigating insects or any other pest that pisses them off."

But where was the Australian Government in all this?



The inquiry has raised enormous questions about the Howard Government. Despite the restrictive terms of reference shielding the Government, the inquiry has uncovered gross negligence and mismanagement of Australia's national interests at the highest levels and evidence that the administration did not act on the warnings it received about Saddam Hussein's corruption of the oil-for-food program and AWB's starring role in it.

This the same company being helped by dignitaries who were at the White House for a bash in honor of Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

And let's not forget the role of a high-profile Melbourne lawyer Richard Tracey who was creating the impression that everything was squeaky clean. A backroom boy who has since been appointed a judge to Australia's Federal Court by Federal attorney-general Philip Ruddock.

AWB was originally a government-owned agency. But when it was privatised, its corporate governance was set up in a way that ensured it could get away with paying Saddam bribes.

In its eagerness to make a buck, the Australian Government had set up a disaster waiting to happen and I look at the way the corporate governance model worked here.