No blind eye on AWB payments: PM

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PRIME Minister John Howard today denied his government had turned a blind eye to payments by Australia's wheat exporter AWB to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

In Parliament today, Mr Howard accused Opposition Leader Kim Beazley of distorting facts over the AWB scandal.

"In the middle of the Iraq war, with Australian troops in the field, why did the Prime Minister turn a blind eye to multiple warnings that Australia was the biggest contributor to this immoral and shameful rort," Mr Beazley said.

They included Canadian government warnings in December 1999, warnings conveyed through the United Nations in January 2000 and warnings repeated by the UN in March 2000, all to the effect that Australia's AWB was rorting the oil-for-food program for the benefit of Saddam Hussein.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18069499%255E1702,00.html