The problems confronting Australian wheat export agency AWB which was slated last month by an Australian Government inquiry for slinging bribes to Saddam Hussein continue.

Now, we have news that the Iraqis are suing AWB , claiming they did not get humanitarian goods because the agency corrupted the UN oil-for-food program.

This comes on top of the $1 billion lawsuit from US wheat growers and a class action being mounted by AWB shareholders. That in itself could put the company in big danger, reports the Sunday Age.

Desperate to show its hands are clean, the Australian Government has ended AWB's monopoly on the wheat trade.

But that doesn't quite square up with the fact that the Australian Taxation Office has ruled that AWB's bribes to Saddam Hussein are actually tax deductible. Talk about mixed messages!

The truth is the Australian Government was in it up to its neck. AWB paid $A290million in bribes to the government of Saddam Hussein with whom Australia then went to war. And it happened under the nose of a Government that was under a legal obligation to enforce UN sanctions, the same sanctions that were designed to stop Saddam developing weapons of mass destruction. The only reason the Cole inquiry didn't find against the Australian Government was because its terms of reference didn't allow that to happen. Its collusion and incompetence is examined here in this piece by David Marr.

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