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Secret Report
Corruption is
"Norm" Within Iraqi Government
By David Corn
08/31/07 "The
Nation" -- -- As
Congress prepares to receive reports on Iraq from General David
Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and readies for a
debate on George W. Bush's latest funding request of $50 billion
for the Iraq war, the performance of the government of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki has become a central and contentious
issue. But according to the working draft of a secret document
prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the Maliki government
has failed in one significant area: corruption. Maliki's
government is "not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of
anticorruption laws," the report says, and, perhaps worse, the
report notes that Maliki's office has impeded investigations of
fraud and crime within the government.
The draft--over 70 pages long--was obtained by The Nation, and
it reviews the work (or attempted work) of the Commission on
Public Integrity (CPI), an independent Iraqi institution, and
other anticorruption agencies within the Iraqi government.
Labeled "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED/Not for distribution to
personnel outside of the US Embassy in Baghdad," the study
details a situation in which there is little, if any,
prosecution of government theft and sleaze. Moreover, it
concludes that corruption is "the norm in many ministries."
The report depicts the Iraqi government as riddled with
corruption and criminals-and beyond the reach of anticorruption
investigators. It also maintains that the extensive corruption
within the Iraqi government has strategic consequences by
decreasing public support for the U.S.-backed government and by
providing a source of funding for Iraqi insurgents and militias.
The report, which was drafted by a team of U.S. embassy
officials, surveys the various Iraqi ministries. "The Ministry
of Interior is seen by Iraqis as untouchable by the
anticorruption enforcement infrastructure of Iraq," it says.
"Corruption investigations in Ministry of Defense are judged to
be ineffectual." The study reports that the Ministry of Trade is
"widely recognized as a troubled ministry" and that of 196
corruption complaints involving this ministry merely eight have
made it to court, with only one person convicted.
The Ministry of Health, according to the report, "is a sore
point; corruption is actually affecting its ability to deliver
services and threatens the support of the government."
Investigations involving the Ministry of Oil have been
manipulated, the study says, and the "CPI and the [Inspector
General of the ministry] are completely ill-equipped to handle
oil theft cases." There is no accurate accounting of oil
production and transportation within the ministry, the report
explains, because organized crime groups are stealing oil "for
the benefit of militias/insurgents, corrupt public officials and
foreign buyers."
The list goes on: "Anticorruption cases concerning the Ministry
of Education have been particularly ineffective….[T]he Ministry
of Water Resources…is effectively out of the anticorruption
fight with little to no apparent effort in trying to combat
fraud….[T]he Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs is hostile to
the prosecution of corruption cases. Militia support from [Shia
leader Moqtada al-Sadr] has effectively made corruption in the
Ministry of Transportation wholesale according to investigators
and immune from prosecution." Several ministries, according to
the study, are "so controlled by criminal gangs or militias"
that it is impossible for corruption investigators "to operate
within [them] absent a tactical [security] force protecting the
investigator."
The Ministry of the Interior, which has been a stronghold of
Shia militias, stands out in the report. The study's authors say
that "groups within MOI function similarly to a Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) in the classic sense.
MOI is a 'legal enterprise' which has been co-opted by organized
criminals who act through the 'legal enterprise' to commit
crimes such as kidnapping, extortion, bribery, etc." This is
like saying the mob is running the police department. The report
notes, "currently 426 investigations are hung up awaiting
responses for documents belonging to MOI which routinely are
ignored." It cites an episode during which a CPI officer
discovered two eyewitnesses to the October 2006 murder of Amer
al-Hashima, the brother of the vice president, but the CPI
investigator would not identify the eyewitnesses to the Minister
of the Interior out of fear he and they would be assassinated.
(It seemed that the killers were linked to the Interior
Ministry.) The report adds, "CPI investigators assigned to MOI
investigations have unanimously expressed their fear of being
assassinated should they aggressively pursue their duties at MOI.
Thus when the head of MOI intelligence recently personally
visited the Commissioner of CPI…to end investigations of [an]
MOI contract, there was a clear sense of concern within the
agency."
Over at the Defense Ministry, the report notes, there has been a
"shocking lack of concern" about the apparent theft of $850
million from the Iraqi military's procurement budget. "In some
cases," the report says, "American advisors working for US
[Department of Defense] have interceded to remove [Iraqi]
suspects from investigations or custody." Of 455 corruption
investigations at the Defense Ministry, only 15 have reached the
trial stage. A mere four investigators are assigned to
investigating corruption in the department. And at the Ministry
of Trade, "criminal gangs" divide the spoils, with one handling
grain theft, another stealing transportation assets.
Part of the problem, according to the report, is Maliki's
office: "The Prime Minister's Office has demonstrated an open
hostility" to independent corruption investigations. His
government has withheld resources from the CPI, the report says,
and "there have been a number of identified cases where
government and political pressure has been applied to change the
outcome of investigations and prosecutions in favor of members
of the Shia Alliance"-which includes Maliki's Dawa party.
The report's authors note that the man Maliki appointed as his
anticorruption adviser--Adel Muhsien Abdulla al-Quza'alee--has
said that independent agencies, like the CPI, should be under
the control of Maliki. According to the report, "Adel has in the
presence of American advisors pressed the Commissioner of CPI to
withdraw cases referred to court." These cases involved
defendants who were members of the Shia Alliance. (Adel has
also, according to the report, "steadfastly refused to submit
his financial disclosure form.") And Maliki's office, the report
says, has tried to "force out the entire leadership of CPI to
replace them with political appointees"--which would be
tantamount to a death sentence for the CPI officials. They now
live in the Green Zone. Were they to lose their CPI jobs, they
would have to move out of the protected zone and would be at the
mercy of the insurgents, militias, and crime gangs "who are
[the] subjects of their investigations."
Maliki has also protected corrupt officials by reinstating a law
that prevents the prosecution of a government official without
the permission of the minister of the relevant agency. According
to a memo drafted in March by the U.S. embassy's anticorruption
working group-a memo first disclosed by The Washington
Post--between September 2006 and February 2007, ministers used
this law to block the prosecutions of 48 corruption cases
involving a total of $35 million. Many other cases at this time
were in the process of being stalled in the same manner. The
stonewalled probes included one case in which Oil Ministry
employees rigged bids for $2.5 million in equipment and another
in which ministry personnel stole 33 trucks of petroleum.
And in another memo obtained by The Nation--marked "Secret and
Confidential"-Maliki's office earlier this year ordered the
Commission on Public Integrity not to forward any case to the
courts involving the president of Iraq, the prime minister of
Iraq, or any current or past ministers without first obtaining
Maliki's consent. According to the U.S. embassy report on the
anticorruption efforts, the government's hostility to the CPI
has gone so far that for a time the CPI link on the official
Iraqi government web site directed visitors to a pornographic
site.
In assessing the Commission on Public Integrity, the embassy
report notes that the CPI lacks sufficient staff and funding to
be effective. The watchdog outfit has only 120 investigators to
cover 34 ministries and agencies. And these investigators, the
report notes, "are closer to clerks processing paperwork rather
than investigators solving crimes." The CPI, according to the
report, "is currently more of a passive rather than a true
investigatory agency. Though legally empowered to conduct
investigations, the combined security situation and the violent
character of the criminal elements within the ministries make
investigation of corruption too hazardous."
CPI staffers have been "accosted by armed gangs within ministry
headquarters and denied access to officials and records." They
and their families are routinely threatened. Some sleep in their
office in the Green Zone. In December 2006, a sniper positioned
on top of an Iraqi government building in the Green Zone fired
three shots at CPI headquarters. Twelve CPI personnel have been
murdered in the line of duty. The CPI, according to the report,
"has resorted to arming people hired for janitorial and
maintenance duty."
Radhi al-Radhi, a former judge who was tortured and imprisoned
during Saddam Hussein's regime and who heads the CPI, has been
forced to live in a safe house with one of his chief
investigators, according to an associate of Radhi who asked not
to be identified. Radhi has worked with Stuart Bowen Jr., the
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, who
investigates fraud and waste involving U.S. officials and
contractors. His targets have included former Defense Minister
Hazem Shalaan and former Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae.
And Radhi himself has become a target of accusations. A year
ago, Maliki's office sent a letter to Radhi suggesting that the
CPI could not account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in
expenses and that Radhi might be corrupt. But, according to the
US embassy report, a subsequent audit of the CPI was "glowing."
In July, the Iraqi parliament considered a motion of no
confidence in Radhi-a move widely interpreted as retaliation for
his pursuit of corrupt officials. But the legislators put off a
vote on the resolution. In late August, Radhi came to the United
States. He is considering remaining here, according to an
associate.
Corruption, the report says, is "one of the major hurdles the
Iraqi government must overcome if it is to survive as a stable
and independent entity." Without a vigorous anticorruption
effort, the report's authors assert, the current Iraqi
government "is likely to loose [sic] the support of its people."
And, they write, continuing corruption "will likely fund the
violent groups that our troops are likely to face." Yet,
according to the report, the U.S. embassy is providing
"uncertain" resources for anticorruption programs. "It's a
farce," says a U.S. embassy employee. "There is a budget of zero
[within the embassy] to fight corruption. No one ever asked for
this report to be written. And it was shit-canned. Who the hell
would want to release it? It should infuriate the families of
the soldiers and those who are fighting in Iraq supposedly to
give Maliki's government a chance."
Beating back corruption is not one of the 18 congressionally
mandated benchmarks for Iraq and the Maliki government. But this
hard-hitting report-you can practically see the authors pulling
out their hair-makes a powerful though implicit case that it
ought to be. The study is a damning indictment: widespread
corruption within the Iraqi government undermines and discredits
the U.S. mission in Iraq. And the Bush administration is doing
little to stop it.
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
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