Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer the minister to an email from the Australian embassy in Oman to the AWB nine months before the Iraq war, which has just been released by the Cole inquiry. I refer specifically to the embassy’s meeting with Mr Jamal Shareef Hazaa and the embassy’s report of Mr Hazaa’s close connections with senior figures in the Iraqi regime, including with Saddam Hussein himself. I also refer the minister to the embassy’s statement in this email that they would be prepared to arrange an introduction between the AWB and Mr Hazaa, using his direct connections with the Iraqi dictator and his offer to enhance AWB sales to Saddam by ‘working behind the scenes’. Can the minister inform the House whether it was appropriate for the government to be offering matchmaking services between the minister’s close friends in the AWB and Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, or was this seen by the government as ‘business as usual’ in cuddling up to the Iraqi dictator just prior to going to war?

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