AWB: Troops for wheat sales?

Eighteen months after the invasion of Iraq, high-ranking Australian diplomats in Washington colluded with an AWB "damage control" team to shield the wheat exporter's actions from a potentially damaging US Senate investigation.

Documents reveal for the first time the extent of the extraordinary co-operation between the Howard Government and AWB during 2004 as they worked to defuse the US Senate's probe into corruption of the United Nation's oil-for-food program.

While 850 Australian military personnel were fighting the Iraq insurgency, Australia's ambassador to the US, Michael Thawley, his deputy, Peter Baxter, a team of AWB lawyers and influential Washington lobbyists including former Clinton defence secretary William Cohen worked on a strategy to conceal the full extent of its activities from the US Senate committee.

AWB's in-house name for it was Project Rose.

The AWB strategy was, in effect, to play the Iraq card — using the presence of Australian troops as a leverage point to protect Australia's wheat market.

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