Top cop: Job was offered to close down probe

Saddam Hussein. Photo / AP

The long-running scandal over secret Australian kickbacks to the former regime of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has resurfaced with claims the chief federal police investigator was offered promotion to end the probe.

Former senior agent Ross Fusca also told ABC Television's 7.30 Report last night that the taskforce set up to investigate illegal payments by the Australian Wheat Board was not provided with adequate resources, and was ended prematurely.

Fusca resigned from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in 2010, a year after the investigation ended, and is claiming damages for alleged mistreatment in breach of the Fair Work Act.

He told the 7.30 Report that in 2008 he had been "stunned" to receive an offer of promotion from an AFP manager in return for "making the taskforce disappear".

Fusca said this was followed the next day by pressure from another senior officer to close the investigation because it had reached the limits of its budget.

The taskforce was at the time the AFP's most important investigation.

"Much to my surprise - and I've been in taskforces previously where everything is thrown at it - on this occasion we lacked appropriate accommodation to the point where ASIC were working in one building, the AFP hadn't contributed or allocated very many resources to the taskforce," Fusca said.

He also rejected claims the Government had not been aware of the kickbacks.

The AWB, the former statutory monopoly seller of Australian wheat and now a Canadian-owned private trader, funnelled almost A$300 million to the Hussein regime to win sales under the United Nations' oil-for-food programme.

Although clearing government officials of complicity or knowledge, a royal commission confirmed the kickbacks and recommended proceedings against 12 people.

After the AFP taskforce was shut down the inquiry was handed to the corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, which last week said it intended to fine former AWB managing director Andrew Lindberg A$100,000 for breaches of the Corporations Act relating to the kickbacks.

The breaches involved inadequate due diligence by failing to make proper inquiries and to inform the board in relation to issues relating to the supply of wheat to Iraq.

Four other AWB executives remain under investigation, including former chairman and consultant Trevor Flugge, alleged to have been present at meetings in Iraq relating to the scandal.

Flugge, a farmer and a stalwart of the West Australian National Party, denies knowledge of the illegal payments.

The oil-for-food scandal remains politically sensitive, with allegations that the government of former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard was aware of the payments but took no action.

Howard committed Australia to the first Gulf War and established the royal commission into the kickbacks after a United Nations inquiry uncovered the AWB's involvement.

The UN launched the oil-for-food programme to allow Iraq to sell oil and deposit the money in a UN bank account to pay for food and other essential to ease the humanitarian pain of sanctions imposed after the war.