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Lord Downer of Baghdad, AWB and the Cole Inquiry

No more need be added to this Editorial [perhaps surprising coming from where it does] in The Australian this morning:

"DESPITE all the apparent evidence of commercial corruption and bureaucratic incompetence emerging at the Cole inquiry, two questions are unaddressed. Did Foreign Minister Alexander Downer believe anything he said when he explained the need for Australian troops to fight Saddam Hussein? And if he did, how could he ignore any allegation that AWB was paying off an enemy Australia went to war against twice in 12 years? The Foreign Minister still says he believed AWB's denials that it paid bribes to the Iraqi dictator. It is a curious defence that can easily create the impression that Mr Downer is either a dill or a cynic unwilling to explain what he really thought about the ethics involved if AWB was paying bribes in Iraq. With this week's revelation that as late as last September he was telling the UN's Volcker inquiry that bribery was just a routine part of business in the Middle East, it looks like he is both."....

........"After 10 years of largely competent service, Mr Downer has demonstrated he no longer has the judgment to serve as Australia's foreign minister – or in any higher office. His department needs a shake-up and a new minister. And talk among friends of the Foreign Minister that he could be a candidate for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party, or even The Lodge, is simply not credible in light of what we now know about Mr Downer's judgment. The wheat-for-weapons scandal has claimed its first scalp – Mr Downer's credibility is crippled."

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