SYDNEY, Feb 1: The United States Senate was on Wednesday drawn into a growing controversy over the Australian government’s role in a scandal about bribes paid to the Saddam government.

Canberra admitted that it had lobbied Washington to drop an investigation into allegations that Australian national wheat exporter AWB paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Iraq to secure sales worth 2.3 billion dollars.

Australia’s ambassador to Washington met the chairman of a Senate committee in late 2004 and ‘argued strongly’ against plans to probe AWB, formerly the government-run Australian Wheat Board, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

The government was worried that the inquiry into AWB’s role in the UN oil-for-food scandal would be used by US wheat exporters — Australia’s biggest international competitors — to damage Australia’s trade with Iraq, he said.

The planned probe was dropped after the government’s representations, through the then-ambassador Michael Thawley, to US Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of a Senate investigations committee.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a close ally of US President George Bush and committed troops to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) said Mr Coleman had now written to Thawley saying he was deeply troubled by his emphatic denials of the kickbacks, after evidence at a Sydney inquiry suggested some Australian government officials may have known about them.

“These revelations are extremely disconcerting in light of the fact that you came to my office and expressly denied these allegations,” Mr Coleman was quoted as saying.

Seven US senators, all from major farm states, have joined calls to ban AWB’s US subsidiary from export credit programs, the ABC said.

Although the ban would not affect AWB’s Australian operations or exports, it would prevent AWB in the US from accessing US government credit to export American commodities.

An aide to one of the seven senators, Senator Tom Harkin, said they would like more information on the scandal, which is being probed by the Australian commission of inquiry that began work last month.—AFP