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Australian MP: I smuggled cash to Iraq 16.3.2005
By Nick Butterly, Herald Sun |
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SENIOR Liberal
Senator Ross Lightfoot smuggled $25,000 into Iraq on
behalf of Australia's biggest oil company and armed
himself with high-powered pistols for protection.
Senator Lightfoot told the Herald Sun yesterday he
used a taxpayer-funded study tour to secretly spirit
the money ($US20,000 in cash) into Iraq in January
this year on behalf of Woodside Petroleum.
In an extraordinary twist, he sold his parcel of
Woodside shares on Tuesday as details of his Iraq
tour were about to be revealed. |
Photo :
Herald Sun |
The renegade WA Senator
and acting Deputy President of the Senate stayed in
the town of Sulaymaniyah, in Kurdistan, a northern
province of Iraq, where Woodside is trying to tap
into Iraq's vast 115 billion barrel oil reserves.
"I was offered and accepted the use of a .38
pistol," he wrote in his official report to
Parliament.
Photographs show the outspoken senator brandishing a
Russian-made AK-47 assault rifle alongside Iraqi
Kurd troops.
The wad of US dollars, stitched into the lining of a
jacket, was to be donated to a run-down hospital in
Halabjah, in Iraq's oil-rich north. |
Photo :
Herald Sun |
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On Tuesday, when the Herald Sun first spoke to
Senator Lightfoot about the smuggling run, he said
the cash was sewn into the lining of his own jacket.
Yesterday, he said it had been carried by an
offsider on his behalf.
The senator later handed the money to the prime
minister of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Neither the cash nor the hospital is mentioned in
Senator Lightfoot's report to Parliament.
The study tour was sanctioned by Parliament on the
understanding that he would observe Iraq's first
democratic election on January 30. It was also to
look at "mutually beneficial" business
opportunities.
"It was never suggested it (the $US20,000) was going
to be tied into the acquisition of oil leases,"
Senator Lightfoot said yesterday. "It was carried by
another person with me and given to the Kurdistan
regional government.
"I didn't participate directly in any of the
negotiations for any of the oil leases," he said.
Senator Lightfoot said smuggling the cash was
necessary because there was no other reliable way of
getting it into Iraq. "There's no post offices . . .
no mail, no banks," he said.
In November, Woodside signed a deal to explore for
oil in Kurdistan.
Senator Lightfoot flew from Perth to Istanbul and
then to eastern Turkey before crossing snowbound
mountain passes in dodgy taxis to deliver the cash.
He said the Woodside donation was brokered by
Professor Robert Amin, a Kurdish exile who chairs
the Woodside Hydrocarbon Research Facility at Curtin
University.
Under the Kurdistan deal, Woodside will train Iraqi
oil workers at the university in Perth.
Senator Lightfoot said he never took part in any
discussions between the oil companies and Kurdish
authorities.
He also visited Iraq in July last year.
Both times he was offered, and accepted, pistols for
his protection.
On the July trip, which lasted eight days, Senator
Lightfoot carried a Glock handgun similar to the
model issued to Australian Federal Police.
On the second trip he had a .38 calibre pistol.
The senator said the cash was taken into Iraq on
this year's trip.
It is not known if the cash run was sanctioned by
Prime Minister John Howard or any government
authority.
Senator Lightfoot said the hospital in Halabjah,
where Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in
the 1980s, was in appalling condition and badly
needed funds and equipment.
On the July 2004 trip he flew from Perth to Dubai
and then to Amman, Jordan.
From there the senator paid $US600 for a seat on a
Cessna aircraft chartered by the charity Save the
Children Fund bound for Baghdad.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au
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