Australian media lying by omission over wheat scam that killed up to 20,000 Iraqi infants

Australia has an extraordinary culture of resolute public untruth, "gagging", "looking the other way" and lying by omission. This entrenched culture of LYING permits an Establishment of Prosperous Anglo-Celtic Men (PACMEN; I am 50% Pacman myself) with extremely strong buddy loyalties to get away with blue murder. Now such sustained untruth and "looking the other way" has enabled a major Australian US$250 million corporate scam that may have killed UP TO 20,000 IRAQI INFANTS.

The 2005 UN Volker Report exposed how the Australian monopoly wheat selling corporation the AWB (Australian Wheat Board) had paid kick-backs to the Saddam Hussein regime totalling over US$250 million - over 14% of the total of US$1.8 billion of such kick-backs paid during the period of 1997-2003 associated with the US$35 billion UN Oil-for-Food program. Mainstream media and Federal politicians have been informed that this wheat scam has killed up to 20,000 Iraqi infants - but the SILENCE IS DEAFENING.

IN 2004 the Australian Government headed off a US Senate Investigation into the AWB scam by getting its Ambassador to Washington to lobby and declare that AWB was "clean".

After the Volker Report (2005), the Australia Government declared that they and their intelligence advisors "didn’t know anything" and got their NEW Ambassador to Washington (the former head of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization, ASIO) to say as much to the now indignant US Senators.

The Australian Government set up a judicial inquiry (the Cole Inquiry) to investigate the Volker claims but "gagged" public officials from testifying before an Australian Senate investigation. The AWB scam involved paying exorbitant transport fees to a Jordanian transport company half owned by the Iraqi Government. A former AWB official testified that the scam should have been obvious to anyone comparing the contract wheat price with the US prices quoted in daily newspapers.

A public interview by a former Intelligence officer Warren Reed has revealed that bribery and corruption is standard practice for Australian companies operating in Asia and that it was impossible that Australian Intelligence did not know about the AWB scam.

The AWB scam has revealed the utter DERELICTION and ROTTENNESS of contemporary Australia under the extreme right wing, pro-Bush conservative government - this involving sustained UNTRUTH and "looking the other way" by government and public officials, entrenched corporate corruption, racist inhumanity abroad, official "gagging" of public officials (including top scientists) and entrenched PC racist MEDIA LYING (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/aus-...).

THE FOLLOWING LETTER was sent personally to major Anglo-American and Australian media and to virtually ALL members of the Australian Federal Parliament in the interests of Australia and humanity - the resultant SILENCE and NON-REPORTAGE amounts to RESOLUTE IGNORING of immense abuse of humanity:

AUSTRALIAN CORRUPTION, INCOMPETENCE AND ’WHEAT FOR WEAPONS" CAUSED UP TO 20,000 IRAQI INFANT DEATHS

World’s Best Practice risk management (e.g. in heavy industry and aviation) successively involves (a) untrammelled reportage, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk. Unfortunately, in general society typical procedures successively involve (a) intimidation, censorship and untruth, (b) politicized and legalistic obfuscation and (c) punishment of suitable victims with no systemic change.

The AWB scandal shows how incompetent risk management practices can seriously damage the reputation, trade and security of Australia. While Australian government, politicians, public servants, academics, intelligence and journalists were variously “intimidated”, “asleep at the wheel” or “looking the other way”, about US$225 million was diverted by Australians from the UN Oil-for-Food Program. The maximum amount of money diverted from Iraqi medical expenditure would have been US$225 million/26.9 million Iraqis (2003) = US$8.4 per head.

Using publicly-accessible WHO data, we can plot a graph of infant mortality rate versus annual per capita medical expenditure for Iraq and its neighbours. We can then graphically estimate that in 2003 an extra US$8.4/head of medical expenditure in Iraq would have saved an extra 22 under-5 year old infant lives per 1,000 births. There were 972,000 births in Iraq (2004) and hence the number of infant lives saved would have been about 22 x 972 = 21,384 i.e. about 21,000.

A total of US$1.8 billion was diverted illicitly from the US$35 billion UN Oil-For-Food Program as estimated by the UN Volker Report - this yielding an upper estimate of 180,000 avoidable Iraqi under-5 infant deaths due to foreign corporate scams in the period 1997-2003. The "humanitarian" annual UN Oil-for-Food allocation was strictly limited and was clearly grossly inadequate because the avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in Iraq under sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million and 1.2 million, respectively.

In 2004 the estimated annual per capita medical expenditure was US$37 in Iraq and US$3,100 in Australia. The Geneva Conventions demand that the Occupier provides requisite life-sustaining food and medical services. However funding Iraqi medical services at an Australian level would have cost about US$90 billion per annum - but the actual annual funding was only about US$1 billion. According to UNICEF (2006), in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality in Iraq (population 28 million) was 122,000 as compared to 1,000 in Australia (population 20 million).

Australian corruption, incompetence and lying by omission has contributed directly to the carnage in Iraq. However Australia’s complicity in Coalition war crimes goes much further. The latest UN and UNICEF data reveal that the post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan now totals 2.1 million and the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality totals 1.7 million as a result of non-provision of life-sustaining requisites by the US-led Coalition in violation of the Geneva Conventions (and now the subject of a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court).

Science is about critically testing potentially falsifiable hypotheses. However the “spin” practised by the dominant political and “politicized public service” culture in Australia today is antithetical to science and involves selective use of data and ignoring “undesirable” facts. The same incompetent spin-merchants are currently gagging the very scientists who could properly inform rational risk management in Australia.

The world is an increasingly dangerous place. Australians must insist on rational risk management, “hands off our scientists” and zero tolerance for lying and spin. An Australian government that has made huge political capital out of the “War on Terror” has escalated the risk to Australia from terrorism, dangerously muzzled public servants and incompetently permitted US$225 million to be diverted from medicine for kids to dangerous weapons facing our soldiers in the field. However the upper estimate of the actual human cost of this latest AWB travesty is about 20,000 dead Iraqi kids (see Countercurrents, “Australian corruption and 20,000 Iraqi infant deaths”: http://www.countercurrents.org/aus-...).
This has been written in the public interest.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia

Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his websites: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpo... and http://globalavoidablemortality.blo...).