Australian PM faces grilling at Iraq bribes inquiry
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been summoned for questioning at an official inquiry into the payment of sanctions-busting bribes to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Howard, who will be the first prime minister in almost a quarter of a century to appear before a commission of inquiry, said in a statement he was “happy” to comply. The commission is probing the role of national wheat exporter AWB, formerly the government’s Australian Wheat Board, in the corruption of the UN’s oil-for-food programme in Iraq. Full Story