Australia: “Maintaining and Developing” Saddam

Australian Treasury officials working in the US-led occupation government in Baghdad warned Canberra more than two years ago of corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program that required contractors to pay 10 per cent kickbacks to the Iraqi regime.

They said the kickbacks were used in "maintaining and developing" Saddam Hussein's military capability and warranted "further investigation".

The warnings were explicitly spelt out in the first postwar Iraqi budget which the Treasury officers worked on and sent to Canberra in October 2003.

Marian Wilkinson, “Treasury raised the alarm on kickbacks,” Sydney Morning Herald, 2/13/06.