@Narcissist:

LOL, are you trying to threat Indonesia with your little ANZUS? What a joke! Australia is a stooge of USA, not the other way around. USA is a good friend of Indonesia, they view Indonesia as important ally. Your other masters, Britain, also consider Indonesia as important ally. USA and UK are smart, unlike the dumb Australians.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060313-102838-5694r.htm
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0ae5e286-bfb5-11da-939f-0000779e2340.html

USA always been a good fellow of Indonesia. Americans helped us during war of independence, while JFK helped us liberated Papua from the Dutch. You must be joking if you think USA will support Australia attack other countries. You should realise your country's position: unquestioning loyal lap-dog of USA. You should start behaving like a good lap-dog accordingly.

@Philo:

LOL, Indonesia never want to annex Malaysia into Indonesia. Confrontation was a favour we did to Soviet Union and China to help Malaysian communist insurgents. At that time, Sukarno's Indonesia was aligning itself with the Communist Bloc. However, Indonesian communists foolishly launch coup d'etat attempt in 1965, leading to military retaliation and destruction of communism in Indonesia. After Suharto became president, his anti-communist regime shift alignment to the Western Bloc. Hence, Suharto abandonded Malaysian Confrontation which is now irrelevant and even helped Malaysia crushed their communist insurgents.

On this one, I tend to agree with PTBI. The US and Britain are respected in Indonesia because they have principles and stand by them. For instance, the former British ambassador to Indonesia Richard Gozney spoke in the Indonesian language on Indonesian national TV in defence of the unpopular decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Indonesians, although most disagreed vehemently with what he said, greatly respected him for so courageously expressing his and his government's view. No Australian diplomat would do that in a million years. Australians are rightly regarded as two-faced in Indonesia.

Australia invades Iraq with its troops and at the same time pays hundreds of millions dollars to the same Iraqi regime it's fighting to overthrow. Typical DFAT. Typical Australia.

Talk about bribery and corruption; Indonesia would have to top the world in that area. Everything has a price even so-called Indonesian Justice.

rogindon,
How wrong can you be about the "Bribes" paid to Saddam Hussein! This was not done by the Elected Australian Government nor with the knowledge or approval of the Nation. This was a contract established with Iraq in a food for oil exchange programme; drawn up by the executives in a Government Company - "The Australian Wheat Board". In their eyes the on top percentage payments was to a trucking company to secure the transport and contract to supply.

That the transport company was partly owned by Saddam Hussein and that he was receiving 'kick backs' is the subject of the Cole inquiry. The results of the inquiry are not yet published nor any conclusions released.

Your conclusions are symplistic, impressionistic and unfounded. We were seeking to overthrow a corrupt regime, not starve the Iraqi people.

The inquiry is seeking to establish: who knew and how much did they know that Saddam was directly benefiting from the deal. Note: We deal with bribes and corruption at all contract levels in Australia, unlike the Indonesians where paying bribes is the way of life.

Quote rogindon, "Australia invades Iraq with its troops and at the same time pays hundreds of millions dollars to the same Iraqi regime it's fighting to overthrow. Typical DFAT. Typical Australia.

@Philo:

Yo fool, don't drag Indonesia's name into your dirty Aussie corruption imbroglio. We've got nothing to do with it! Your filthy Australian corporate world and the high levels of your govt has been proven to be filthy corrupt, deal with it! Maybe you should weep a bit in your corner.

The point I am making is that there is a culture in DFAT and in the Australian Government that allowed an Australian national company, under its very noses, to pay large sums of money to the Saddam regime in breach of UN Resolution 661 and in breach of the Australian customs regulations. If you had a firm government policy on a position, then this would never have happened. If the Australian Government policy is no cash to Saddam, then the policy is no cash to Saddam! Why wasn't this policy known by DFAT? If it was known, why wasn't it implemented? What I am saying is that if Australia had a clear policy on this issue (which it clearly didn't), then the money would never have been paid.