BHP's secret talks with Iraq (BHP Petroleum, Australia)

[Barrett808]

IT was a private exchange BHP never expected to be revealed. Amid the smouldering diplomatic files strewn around the headquarters of Saddam Hussein's ransacked foreign ministry in Baghdad fluttered a handful of pages that caught the eye.

Punctuating the flowing Arabic script was an English-language acronym: BHP.

Translated and investigated, the documents show a BHP executive met a senior representative of Hussein's regime at the height of Western sanctions on Iraq, in the hope of winning lucrative oil contracts.

In a private exchange, BHP Petroleum executive Norman Davidson Kelly distanced "The Big Australian" from Australia's tough stand on Iraq and stressed the Howard Government had only limited support on the issue among the Australian public.

The Iraqi records of the 1999 meeting say Mr Davidson Kelly, using terms more commonly associated with the Government's left-wing critics than with a blue-chip resources giant, told Hussein's man "many Australians were amazed" by their Government's tough stand.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,7317883%255E2702,00.html