JOHN HOWARD is expected to become the first Australian Prime Minister to appear before an independent inquiry in 23 years when he gives evidence tomorrow to a panel investigating how the Australian Wheat Board funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime.

Mr Howard’s appearance comes as the wheat scandal has engulfed some of his most senior government colleages: his deputy and the Foreign Minister appeared before the inquiry this week.

Both said that they had no recollection of receiving repeated warnings from diplomats, intelligence agencies and government officials alerting them to the board’s suspected misconduct.

The inquiry, chaired by Terrence Cole, an old law school colleague of Mr Howard’s, has unearthed evidence that the board channelled at least A$290 million (£122 million) in bribes to Saddam via a shady Jordanian trucking company in a desperate effort to protect wheat exports to Iraq worth $1.5 billion (£860,000) under the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme.

On Monday, Mark Vaile, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that he had been too “snowed under” in his trade portfolio to ask questions after being repeatedly alerted to suspicions about the board’s activities. During an 87-minute appearance before the commission, Mr Vaile said more than 20 times that he had no recollection of events.

Yesterday Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister, invoked similar memory lapses when he told the commission that he had no recollection of receiving or reading top-secret cables from Australian representatives abroad, sent to his office, that discussed issues relating to the kickbacks.

Mr Downer said that he had ignored summaries of the cables’ contents prepared by his staff because he was too busy. The cables included advice in 2003 — after Saddam was toppled — that the Interim Provisional Authority in Iraq believed that all Oil-for-Food contracts that operated under the fallen regime had been inflated by at least 10 per cent.

The ministers’ performances were greeted with widespread derision by the media, the Opposition and the public. Kevin Rudd, the Shadow Foreign Minister, asked why Mr Vaile should be receiving a public salary given his negligence.

The wheat board, owned by growers, is the sole marketer of Australian wheat and had negotiated contracts with the UN to supply $1.5 billion of cereal to Iraq.

The Cole inquiry has heard evidence that ministers and officials were told as early as 2000 that the board may have been involved in behaviour in Iraq — in contravention of UN sanctions — that amounted to paying kickbacks.

Australian intelligence agencies that report to Mr Downer have acknowledged knowing since 1998 that the Jordanian transport company Alia — which carried the wheat and delivered the payments to Iraq for the board — was a front for the Saddam regime.

While the inquiry has pursued the line that ministers in the Howard Government repeatedly failed to investigate properly warnings about the board’s activities, the ministers have attempted to blame one another or the UN.

The inquiry, established in October by Mr Howard, has already brought down the chairman and the chief executive of the wheat board. Two other senior board officials, who have given evidence to the inquiry, resigned yesterday.

OILING THE WHEELS

July 1999 Saddam Hussein tells ministers he wants the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) to inflate prices. AWB hides increases as a trucking fee, payable to Saddam

December 1999 Canadian wheat growers report to the suspicions to UN

March 2000 AWB denies the existence of kickbacks

July 2002 Saddam threatens to cancel AWB supply contracts. Officials agree to increase kickbacks

Early 2004 Australia’s Ambassador to the US fends off concerns in Congress

Mid-October 2005 UN releases report which finds AWB was the single biggest contributor to $1.8bn (£1bn) in kickbacks paid to Saddam

Late October 2005 Australian Government establishes inquiry

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