Who Could Have Known?--A New Wrinkle

It's comfort, cold comfort, to know that we're not alone. We're not the only country whose leadership continues to say "nobody could have known" about predictable, and predicted, disasters. Here's a story that has been big news in Australia and almost totally off the American radar screen: the monopoly wheat exporter down there, the Australian Wheat Board, appears to have kicked back hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hussein regime during the oil-for-food program. A public inquiry heard this week from top government ministers, including the foreign minister (Secretary of State) and prime minister. Their response to the series of cables coming from government and UN officials about the kickbacks: they didn't read them.

But Mr Howard did reveal that several of the cables sent to his office had been opened and read by his staff.

He said the information they contained was not important enough to be brought to his attention, saying they were "routine" and should have been handled by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

Among the 21 cables was the January 2000 warning from DFAT's New York diplomat Bronte Moules that theUN was concerned about Canadian allegations AWB was paying kickbacks of $US14 per tonne and wanted the Government to investigate. At the time, the allegations were correct but only the flimsiest investigation was undertaken and AWB's denial was believed.

The Prime Minister told Mr Agius he would "not necessarily" have expected to be told such explosive information.

"Why not?" Mr Agius asked.

"There was absolutely no belief in the Government at the time that AWB had anything other than a great reputation," Mr Howard said.

Nobody could have imagined that the whistle-blowers might be right. Sen. Norm Coleman, who has been so avid for Kofi Annan's resignation in connection with the oil-for-food irregularities: when do you start demanding Prime Minister Howard's resignation?