Iraq and the Australian Whitewash

The Australian Government has announced a judicial enquiry into three companies named in the Volcker report into the UN's 'Oil for Food scandal'.
One of these companies, AWB, is alleged to have funneled almost $300 million to the Iraqi Government through a Jordanian front company, Alia.
Interesting are reports that the terms of reference for the enquiry exclude investigation into the role of ‘government ministers, their advisers and bureaucrats’.
Why, you might ask, are these people excluded? What role is it they might have played in this UN scandal?
AWB was formerly the Australian Wheat Board, a semi government marketing board for the country’s wheat growers. That was in the old days when agrarian socialism, a form of market protection, was in vogue. The emergence of monetarism or what is lately styled as 'crony capitalism' meant that boards like AWB were privatised, so that it is now a listed company.
In essence the government should no longer have anything to do with AWB, except that the board of directors is stacked with their buddies.
Where government does have a role is through DFAT, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. DFAT essentially grease the wheels for the country’s international trade.
Spelling out the enquiries limitations, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the role of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which advised AWB it could enter into a commercial agreement with the Jordanian trucking company that turned out to be a front for Saddam's regime, was not likely to be investigated.

"I don't know that there is a role to look at departmental matters," Ruddock said. "We were asked to establish an inquiry into the corporations."

There are already claims that government departments and ministers turned a blind eye or were culpably negligent in relation to an Australian "Saddam slush fund" despite warnings. Yet while the inquiry will be able to call Government ministers and public servants, including diplomats, it will not be allowed to probe their role.
On top of that cover up, Ruddock could not guarantee whether the inquiry would take all evidence in public. Let’s just keep it limited and behind closed doors.
This is the same government who rejected public opinion to join with his buddy George W in their cynical little Iraqi adventure. They sent Australia to war while at the same time being implicated in funding the Iraqi military build up.

The enquiry is headed by Justice Cole, a former NSW judge who previously headed a royal commission into the building and construction industry.
PM, John Howard said the inquiry was not a "royal commission" but a "commission of inquiry with royal commission powers".

Howard said that he did not have "unqualified faith" in the UN, but said the UN's chief investigator, Paul Volcker, had not made a "zephyr of criticism" of his Government. "That is the reason why the terms of reference are entirely appropriate."

Queensland-based Alkaloids of Australia and Melbourne-based Rhine Ruhr were also named in the Volcker report. Both have denied wrongdoing