"For a purported democracy, the answers are important. The Australian Government was legally obliged to prevent any person from paying cash to Iraq, but the AWB was not stopped from paying Saddam $290 million in less than four years.
To put that in perspective, Melbourne developer George Herscu got five years in prison for paying a bribe of $100,000 to former Queensland transport minister Russ Hinze."
Agius's last question was: "Are you able to say why it was that you never had any such suspicion (that AWB might have been involved in the rorting)?"
Howard replied: "It hadn't crossed my mind that it would have behaved badly." Overington comments: "Had Howard been a witness for AWB, Agius would have said something like: 'Are you a complete fool, Mr Howard?"'
