11/08/05 U.S. Wheat wants sanctions on AWB

Farm and Ranch November 8, 2005 A United Nation's report made by a committee led by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volker concluded that the Australian Wheat Board made 14 percent of the illicit payments that were made to Saddam Hussein's regime under the Oil for Food Program. That finding has prompted U.S. Wheat Associates to call for sanctions against the AWB while Australia conducts its own investigation. Vince Peterson is U.S. Wheat's vice president of Overseas Operations. Peterson: "The Wheat Board has the ability to participate in our U.S. grain exchanges and futures markets even though our grain trade has no possibility of participating in their cash markets. So we think that is something that should be looked at in the interim." 11 U.S. Wheat also says the AWB should be barred from access to U.S. government credit programs they have used. And Peterson says an apology would be welcome too. Peterson: "We were highly disappointed in the reaction we had when we raised this issue two and three years ago and the initial criticism we got publicly was that we were completely misleading. So we do feel somewhat vindicated. At least the report has substantiated what we thought to be taking place two and three years ago. And frankly we would welcome an apology on that level, that we were at least in line and not wildly speculating." Meanwhile, with the end of the Oil for Food program and the new Iraqi government's reform of grain purchasing, the U.S. has so far this marketing year, sold over one-million tons of U.S. Wheat to Iraq making the nation the U.S.'s number four wheat customer. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.