No interest in US

Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has put Australians straight about the US response to the wheat cheats scandal: "This is very exciting to you in Sydney and Canberra; it's not exciting anywhere else in the world that I can see.

"I might know something about it because I am interested in Australia, but as a general matter this is not something that has caught the imagination of three other Americans in the whole city."

As a regular commentator on the issue, I can testify to the truth of his statement, the US really doesn’t give a rat’s arse about an Australian company funding Saddam’s regime while war planning was underway.

Let’s face it, the home grown post war profiteering by US military personnel and contractors in Iraq barely raises a ripple.

It is incredibly, that a country staggering under a debt burden and forking out nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, no one seems particularly put out by crooks skimming their share off the top.

If there was a real concern about who was helping themselves to US funds we would have seen more of the big fish caught in the corruption net. As it is the minnows are being scooped up one at a time while the major corporate crooks continue push the average American deeper into debt.

A similar situation exists with the post Katrina feeding frenzy, which resulted in enormous sums being diverted to further enrich some corporations.

Halliburton’s subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root keep coming up for mention in the un-tendered contracts and corruption stakes, but still seem to glide through unscathed. No doubt proximity of many suspect corporations to the Bush administration saves them from the burden of close scrutiny.

I don't like the visuals

Richard Armitage also says the delay in posting to Australia the new US ambassador is unconscionable. I’m starting to think it has more to do with keeping Americans insulated from the import of the Aussie shenanigans.

If there was a US ambassador in Canberra he would have a clear responsibility to follow and comment on the evidence which shows how the corrupt monopoly wheat exporter was impacting on the US.

Bush appointed Robert McCallum to the post but Armitage says Senate approval was withheld after a deputy Democrat leader in the US Senate, Dick Durbin, acted to delay the nomination.

I suspect there will be no ambassador appointed until the Cole Inquiry into the Oil for Food scandal has completed its investigation.

No point in the Administration having to turn around later and deny knowledge of diplomatic cables intended to alert them to the issues.

Armitage says; "I don't like the visuals of not having an ambassador there [in Canberra]." I’m sure Bush and co can do without the visuals if one were in place.