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History Will Judge AWB [and Lord Downer?] Harshly

This letter - which appears in the Australian Financial Review today- is, if nothing else, revealing of the Australian Government's alleged humanitarian attitude......

"Regardless of what the Australian government knew of AWB kickbacks to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the scandal runs far deeper than that.

The overarching scandal was Australia's unwavering support for the economic sanctions even when it was known that the sanctions were destroying Iraqi society, killing hundreds of thousands of children and helping Hussein keep his murderous grip on the country.

The oil-for-food program, which began in 1996 and was basically controlled by the United States and the United Kingdom, was so ineffective that two of its heads, Dennis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, both very senior United Nations officials, resigned in protest.

In 2000, Halliday visited Australia to urge our government to withdraw support for the sanctions, the effects of which he described as genocide. He met Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who treated his evidence and first-hand experience with little more than contempt.

Halliday reportedly said of the April meeting with Downer that he exuded a sort of arrogance "which I find quite distressing ... It was a very disturbing meeting".

History will record Australia's obsequious complicity in this crime against humanity, and the role of those ministers who knew but did nothing."

Sue Wareham, Past president, Medical Association for Prevention of War, Evatt, ACT.

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