Australia Suckers USA?

Given the evidence coming out of Australia’s ‘oil for food’ inquiry; the rebuffed claims US Wheat Associates of kickbacks to Saddam’s regime; the muzzling of a US Senate inquiry into kickback claims, it looks suspiciously like the USA has been duped by the Aussies.

Of course looks can be deceiving, and probably are. For example, Australia’s agricultural hard man, the gun toting Trevor Flugge; former chairman of Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter isn’t nearly astute as he might appear.
In evidence to the Cole Inquiry, in Sydney, Flugge claims to be ‘deaf in one ear, and can’t hear with the other’. The result of this incapacity, it seems, is this high octane operator rarely actually heard anything that was being discussed in his various spheres of responsibility.
Even incapacitated in this way the Australian government sent the farmer’s fixer off to post war Iraq, with we are told a $1 million pay check, to "revitalisation of Iraq's agricultural sector “
Well, that is what we were told at the time. But the US wheat lobby weren’t best pleased about the appointment of ‘flaky Flugge’. They maintained that he was up to his eyeballs in corruption. And the funny thing is, the hard of hearing Flugge actually heard their accusations, and fired back this wonderful salvo:
"It is very easy to sit in air-conditioned offices in Washington and fire off letters to the Secretary of State," Flugge said. "We have got a team of people here - Americans and Australians - who are working 15 hours a day to try and stand up agriculture in this country which is nearly broken." He dismissed the corruption accusations as "absolute rubbish" Deal us in Sydney Morning Herald
The appointment of Flugge to this highly paid ‘humanitarian’ effort or at least an effort to protect Australia’s wheat markets was done with full knowledge of AWB’s kickbacks.
It has now emerged that the Canadians and US where correct in their suspicions of crooked dealings and that the Australian Government chose to turn a blind eye.

My problem with all of this is just how Australia managed to get away with ploy of inserting Flugge into the Baghdad role. The US wheat people screamed loudly at the time. The US administration could not avoid hearing the clamour, yet they conceded the point to Australia over their own market interests.
I can comprehend the Canadian’s speaking their piece then going quiet. It is, it seems, the local way not to make waves. Canadians are simply not brash and mouthy like their US and Australian counterparts.
Harder to understand is the US position. Any Canadian will tell you how dogged the US are about maintaining market supremacy, and Australia is hardly so powerful as to intimidate the US administration on trade or any other issue.
Then of course there is the UN. The United Nations signed off on the obviously suspect AWB wheat deals. They would no doubt have swept the whole issue under the carpet if the Iraq interim government hadn’t made a fuss about it. But having gone through Saddam’s ministry buildings in search of documents, garnering evidence and having old scores to settle, the Interim government had plenty of ammunition to force the issue.

I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for Flugge or the other business people caught up in all this. The various governing administrations will no doubt be looking to hang these guys out to dry as the scapegoats for their own complicity.
But Flugge and his ilk are not simple business people. They wield enormous power in their respective industry sectors and on governments. US Wheat Associates might bleat, but they accepted what they could have changed if they chose to.
These are the powers behind government decisions, the tails that wag the dogs. But I have to admit, I would delight in seeing some of those pissant politicians go down, for being gutless if nothing else.