Corruption is norm in Iraqi government

This is not surprising, sadly.

Secret Report: Corruption Is "Norm" Within Iraqi Government
    By David Corn
    The Nation

    Thursday 30 August 2007

    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."

Continued

Corruption Rampant in Iraqi Govt

This is ridiculous.  I think a vote of confidence is in order here.

Investigator: Corruption Is 'Rampant' in Iraqi Government

Iraqi Official Tells House Committee Corruption Is Growing Steadily

By William Branigin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 4, 2007; 4:06 PM

A former top Iraqi corruption investigator told a House committee today that corruption is "rampant" in the Iraqi government -- costing the country's treasury as much as $18 billion during the past three years -- and is growing steadily worse amid violence and intimidation directed at officials charged with combating it.

Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, an Iraqi judge who headed the Commission on Public Integrity set up by U.S. authorities in 2004, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that 31 commission employees and at least 12 of their family members have been assassinated in an effort to stop corruption investigations.

"In a number of cases, my staff and their relatives have been kidnapped or detained and tortured prior to being killed," Radhi said. Among those slain, he said, have been a staff member who was gunned down with his wife, who was seven months pregnant, and his security chief's father, whose body was found hanging from a meat hook.

Radhi charged that corruption reaches high into the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who he said has shut down investigations into the diversion of billions of dollars. He said he could not say whether Maliki is personally involved in the malfeasance, but he charged that the prime minister "has protected some of his relatives who were involved in corruption," including a former minister of transportation.

Radhi said escalating threats against him and his family have forced him to seek asylum in the United States. He arrived in August at the head of a delegation for forensics and evidence training with the U.S. Department of Justice.   continued

Corruption plagues Iraqi govt

Corruption seen at root of Iraq's lack of services

Thu May 7, 2009 11:10am EDT

BAGHDAD, May 7 (Reuters) - Widespread corruption is at the root of Iraq's persistent, destabilising lack of basic services, Deputy Prime Minister Rafie al-Esawi said on Thursday. "The biggest challenge is not just the budget, which we were obliged to cut because of the drop in oil income, so that's beyond our control, but also corruption," he said.

Speaking at a conference on services in Iraqi provinces, Esawi cited a host of reasons for the lack of proper water, electricity and other basic services across the country.

Another major problem, he said, is continued violence, even though the bloodshed unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 has fallen from its peaks in 2006-2007.

As violence fades, Iraqis focus more and more on problems plaguing daily life, such as intermittent electricity, a lack of clean drinking water and an outdated and overwhelmed sewage system.

continued

Corruption in Iraq leads to terrorism

'Our country is now ranked by the global corruption monitor, Transparency International, as the third most corrupt in the world - and sadly for all of us this is not a statistic - It is a fact of life!

Our security is undermined because checkpoint guards are bribed. Our electoral commission is corrupted because the sects divide up offices of power amongst themselves so that their will, rather than the people’s, is ensured.

If you want a job to feed your family and have a roof over your head then you are expected to pay cash for the privilege of a government post. People in desperation feel that they have no alternative than to give corrupt officials a bribe.

People even have to pay to have their garbage collected. If they don’t pay they risk having garbage pile up in the streets. What sort of life is this for our families?

The corruption can be seen at every level of our society. At the highest level we have seen ministers of this government personally profit to the tune of millions of dollars. Funds meant for much needed electricity and water services are siphoned off and used to benefit ministers and their cronies and families.

Billions of dollars provided by countries that want to help our people are wasted or worse still stolen. Yet our current politicians and parties do nothing to deal with these problems because they are the very reason for them. We must have change. And we need bold change and an end to the cosy deals between sects and the current politicians who have brought our country to this.'

The Retarded State of the Middle East

'Why is the Arab world – let us speak with terrible sharpness – so backward? Why so many dictators, so few human rights, so much state security and torture, so terrible a literacy rate?

Why does this wretched place, so rich in oil, have to produce, even in the age of the computer, a population so poorly educated, so undernourished, so corrupt? Yes, I know the history of Western colonialism, the dark conspiracies of the West, the Arab argument that you cannot upset the sheikhs and the kings and the autocrats, the imams and the emirs when the "enemy is at the gates". There is some truth to that. But not enough truth.

Once more the United Nations Development Programme has popped up with yet one more, its fifth, report that catalogues – via Arab analysts and academics, mark you – the retarded state of much of the Middle East. It talks of "the fragility of the region's political, social, economic and environmental structures... its vulnerability to outside intervention". But does this account for desertification, for illiteracy – especially among women – and the Arab state which, as the report admits, is often turned "into a threat to human security, instead of its chief support"?

As Arab journalist Rami Khouri stated bleakly last week: "How we tackle the underlying causes of our mediocrity and bring about real change anchored in solid citizenship, productive economies and stable statehood, remains the riddle that has defied three generations of Arabs." Real GDP per capita in the region – one of the statistics which truly shocked Khouri – grew by only 6.4 per cent between 1980 and 2004. That's just 0.5 per cent annually, a rate which 198 of 217 countries analysed by the CIA World Factbook bettered in 2008. Yet the Arab population – which stood at 150 million in 1980 – will reach 400 million in 2015.

I notice much of this myself. When I first came to the Middle East in 1976, it was crowded enough. Cairo's steaming, fetid streets were already jam-packed, night and day, with up to a million homeless living in the great Ottoman cemeteries. Arab homes are spotlessly clean but their streets are often repulsive, dirt and ordure spilling on to the pavements. Even in beautiful Lebanon, where a kind of democracy does exist and whose people are among the most educated and cultured in the Middle East, you find a similar phenomenon. In the rough hill villages of the south, the same cleanliness exists in every home. But why are the streets and the hills so dirty?

I suspect that a real problem exists in the mind of Arabs; they do not feel that they own their countries. Constantly coaxed into effusions of enthusiasm for Arab or national "unity", I think they do not feel that sense of belonging which Westerners feel. Unable, for the most part, to elect real representatives – even in Lebanon, outside the tribal or sectarian context – they feel "ruled over". The street, the country as a physical entity, belongs to someone else. And of course, the moment a movement comes along and – even worse – becomes popular, emergency laws are introduced to make these movements illegal or "terrorist". Thus it is always someone else's responsibility to look after the gardens and the hills and the streets.

And those who work within the state system – who work directly for the state and its corrupt autarchies – also feel that their existence depends on the same corruption upon which the state itself thrives. The people become part of the corruption. I shall always remember an Arab landlord, many years ago, bemoaning an anti-corruption drive by his government. "In the old days, I paid bribes and we got the phone mended and the water pipes mended and the electricity restored," he complained. "But what can I do now, Mr, Robert? I can't bribe anyone – so nothing gets done!" '

Iraqi Fugitive Donated to Bush Campaigns

Bush-Alsammarae meeting Sept. 2003
White House Photo

Contributed Before, After Appointed Iraqi Govt. Minister
12/21/2006 00:33 AM ET

Bush-Alsammarae meeting Sept. 2003
raqSlogger has learned that the ex-Iraqi government minister who is the subject of a nationwide manhunt in Iraq contributed to George W. Bush's presidential campaigns before and after being appointed by U.S. authorities as Iraq's minister of electricity.

Aiham Alsammarae, an Iraqi-American who considered the Chicago area home for 27 years until 2003, escaped his Baghdad Green Zone jail Sunday in an effort to avoid facing prosecution on corruption charges.

After escaping, Alsammarae, in telephone interviews with U.S. newspaper correspondents, taunted Iraqi authorities, said he was fleeing death threats in Iraq, and claimed he had already left the country.

Campaign contribution records show Alsammarae donated $1,000 to the Bush campaign in 1999 and, after being appointed by U.S. Iraq administrator Paul Bremer as Iraq's electricity minister in August 2003, donated $250 to the Bush campaign in April 2004.

Also while serving as Iraq's minister of electricity, he donated $1,500 to the U.S. Republican National Committee and $250 to the Illinois Republican Party.

Prior to his appointment as an Iraqi government minister, and separate from his Bush presidential campaign and RNC contributions, Alsammarae donated nearly $5,000 to the Illinois Republican party and to Republican U.S. senate candidates.

After being appointed by Bremer in 2003, Alsammarae stayed on as the electricity minister in the government of Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi until May 2005.

Alsammarae and the Iraqi minister of public works met President Bush at the White House September 22, 2003.

Alsammarae was arrested on corruption charges this August and in October was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. That verdict was overturned last week, but he faced further corruption charges when he fled jail.

Corruption still plagues Iraq

Richard Engel is an excellent journalist, but his latest blog post seems to be incomplete in places and he claims that Iraq's political parties are sectarian and unpopular. If they are unpopular, why did so many Iraqis vote for them?

The third war (2004-2006): The Sunni insurgency. Sunnis favored under Saddam’s government were increasingly ostracized and isolated – basically punished by Shiite political parties. Iran’s influence grew dramatically. Al-Qaida militants moved in to western Iraq to incite [sectarian violence?] and help fellow Sunni Arabs fight the U.S.-backed Shiite government.

The fourth war (2006-2007): The Shiites hit back. Al-Qaida-led Sunni insurgents carried out so many atrocities that Shiite militias, some backed by the government, started to fight back. A civil war erupted and bodies piled up in hospital morgues. Neighborhoods were ethnically cleansed. Two to three thousand Iraqis were killed every month. Between 2 and 3 million Iraqis fled their homes, many left the country.

The fifth war (2007-2008): The American "surge." The U.S. military changed its strategy and added extra troops. The United States stopped the civil war.

The sixth war (2008-today): The war of corruption. Iraq’s political parties used the relative stability created by the surge to enrich and empower themselves, stealing from government projects big and small. Iraq is now considered one of the most corrupt nations on earth. The political parties, still mostly based on sectarian lines, are unpopular among most Iraqis.

....

Life for regular Iraqis

I am often asked about the lives of average Iraqis. Have conditions improved? It depends on what you use as a starting point.

Are Iraqis happier, richer and freer than they were under Saddam Hussein? Undoubtedly they are.

Are they better off today than two years ago when Sunnis and Shiite death squads were slitting throats in the street? Certainly, the answer is yes.

But do Iraqis have a stable government that people in Baghdad believe will bring them out of what has been a dark and tumultuous period? Not yet.

I like Engel's honesty. He acknowledges that Iraqis are happier, richer, and freer than they were under Saddam, but he also emphasizes the corruption and incompetence of the current government. I also appreciate his acknowledgment that Sunni insurgents committed many atrocities before Shiite militias hit back. This is something that Arabs and America-hating leftists are unwilling to do.

Ayad Jamal Aldin

From Wikipedia:

'Ayad Jamal Al-Din (in Arabic : إياد جمال الدين) is an Iraqi member of parliament as part of the Iraqi National List. An islamic state secularist, he advocates the separation of church and state. He is quoted as saying:

We are like a bird born in a cage — America broke the cage open, but the bird does not know how to fly.

He is a young, Shia cleric, best known for his consistent campaigning for a new, secular Iraq. He first rose to prominence at the Nasiriyah conference in March 2003, shortly before the fall of Saddam, where he called for a state free of religion, the turban and other theological symbols. In 2005, he was elected as one of the 25 MPs on the Iraqi National List, but withdrew in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with Iyad Allawi’s overtures to Iran. He wants complete independence from Iranian interference in Iraq. He now leads the Ahrar party for the 2010 election to the Council of Representatives, on a policy platform to clean up corruption and create a strong, secure and liberated Iraq for the future.

He was born in Najaf in 1961 which remains home for most of his family, although he now lives in Baghdad. He has several brothers and sisters and his late father was a literary scholar, with over 50 books to his credit, and his uncle was the famous poet Sayed Mustafa Jamal Aldin. Although he eventually trained as a cleric, he was brought up in an environment where science, culture, poetry and religion were studied hand-in-hand. That is where his belief that our problems are ‘human problems first’, and not Sunni or Turkmen or Kurd problems.

Well known in Iraq for his stand against corruption, he is on record as saying that his mission is to see an end to the corruption that has seen politicians subvert religion to their own needs, and use their sects to determine their success.

His first public appearance was at the age of 16, when he protested against the state’s attempt to prevent other Shias from making a pilgrimage to Karbala. And that is why he campaigns for ALL parties to declare who is funding them, how they are controlled, and for an end to outside interference in Iraq’s politics.

He paid for his protest with his freedom, being exiled to Syria and later Iran, where he studied the Qu’ran and Shari’a for eight years and earned his masters degree in Philosophy. He is on record saying that he does not want a secular state in order to reduce the role of God in people's lives; he wants to liberate religion from the state. He wants to see an end to the political sectarianism that puts Kurd against Shia and Turkmen against Sunni, believing that “we have a shared history, and we have a shared destiny”. He has consistently argued that freedom, tolerance and security walk hand-in-hand.

He is the father of six children – three boys and three girls.'

Iraq's culture of the qundara

Anthony Shadid wrote an interesting article in which he discusses the culture of the qundara (shoe) in Iraq. It is sad how easily some Iraqis resort to violence.

A friend once called it the culture of the “kundara,” the word here for shoe.

“When anyone is against you, when anyone has differences with me, I will put a kundara in his mouth, I will shove a kundara down his throat, I will hit him with a kundara,” he said in 2006, long before the spectacle of President Bush’s visit to Baghdad.

“We live in a kundara culture,” he said.

The roots of political violence run deep in Iraq, long a turbulent frontier between Romans and Persians, Ottomans and Safavids and, now, Americans and Iranians.

The Lebanese American journalist did not mention the role of the Arabs in the history of sectarian conflict in Iraq, even though thousands of "mujahideen" from Morocco to Salt to KSA volunteered to become suicide bombers in Iraq and ended up killing mostly Iraqis. Nevertheless Shadid wrote a brutally honest article:

In late-night musings, some here will find a metaphor for it in the rivers. For Egypt, with its reputation for humor and revelry, the Nile was that country’s good fortune, surging waters bringing farms to the desert. The Tigris, an artist once told me, destroyed when it flooded, reckless and unpredictable as it was. It left hard personalities in its wake, delivering Iraqis their well-deserved reputation for toughness.

Others are quick to volunteer the words of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the medieval governor of Iraq, who infamously called his subjects “people of discord and hypocrisy.” “I see heads before me that are ripe and ready for the plucking,” he told them, “and I am the one to pluck them, and I see blood glistening between the turban and the beards.”

People of discord and hypocrisy? Sounds like the Arabs in general. Are there bigger hypocrites than the people who inhabit the heart of the Arabian peninsula? I doubt it. I have written much about Arab hypocrisy on my blog, and yes many Iraqis are hypocrites too. Shadid goes on to quote Joost Hiltermann, who said correctly that Iraq's culture of political violence was inculcated by Saddam's regime:

The medieval governor had a modern incarnation in Saddam Hussein, whose lieutenants once executed a scholarly dissident by driving nails into his forehead. But even Mr. Hussein’s tyranny, with its traumatic legacy, goes only so far in capturing the reflexive pivot to violence.

Before he took power, politics were still existential. In 1963, when the Baath Party overthrew Abdel-Karim Qassem, who himself toppled the monarchy, Baathists sought to eradicate his Communist allies, killing and torturing thousands in a three-day frenzy whose legacy, even now, colors sentiments between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs. After Mr. Hussein’s fall, the country still reeled from the aftermath of war with Iran in the 1980s, when more than a million Iraqi men bore arms and 600,000 others served in militias. In all, a tenth of Iraq’s population became soldiers, schooled in violence.

In vastly asymmetrical ways, Mr. Hussein’s opponents in exile practiced a style of politics the dictator himself honed — the insularity and secrecy of a clandestine movement — and the dissident leaders brought it with them when they returned after the American invasion.

Time has to pass, the optimists say. But even the hopeful will lament that generosity is sparse across a landscape haunted by its traumas and still demarcated by their legacies.

“There is a desire for open politics,” said Joost Hiltermann, a director at the International Crisis Group. “But there is a tendency to intolerance that is deeply ingrained by the former regime and by the reality of opponents fighting that regime.”

“It’s very much the political culture inculcated by the former regime,” he added.

Iraq Pundit did not like Shadid's article, but he concedes there is some truth to it. He points out there is political corruption and violence in every country. It is a good point. Iraq Pundit:

It's hard for me to see western analysis as anything but the western reporters and other experts looking down their noses at Iraqis. If they had respect for Iraqi people, they would not focus on the anger of some who are justifiably angry at the violence of recent years. Of course one can and should mention that violence. But there is so much more to Iraq than some murderous thugs kidnapping and killing civilians.

Even in America corruption exists in high levels of government. Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is a good example. But I think it's ok to admit that Iraq is in general much worse on the scale of corruption and political violence.

Iraq's culture of the qundara is the primary reason I did not write about my father's run for Parliament in this year's election. My father returned from Iraq over the weekend. His party did not receive enough votes to win a single seat in Parliament. He is naturally disappointed.

I thought about the possible consequences of publicly endorsing my dad. Most readers of my blog are not Iraqi anyway, and I would guess that at least half of the Iraqis who read my blog disagree with my opinions. A commenter who calls himself "Saddam Hussein" has encouraged another (Jordanian American) commenter to go to my house and "kick my ass". These are the kind of idiots who contribute to the culture of the qundara. These are the kind of people who killed Mithal al Alusi's sons and continue to attack government employees, including Iraqi judges. These are the kind of people who would attack my father just because he is my father. So in the end I decided that posting about my father's campaign would not have helped him and I thought it may even hurt him.

My dad is disappointed in his loss, but he wishes the best for Iraq. Yesterday I talked with my dad and we agreed that a win for Allawi would hopefully appease the Baathists, at least, and hopefully there will be less violence and less shoe-throwing so that Iraq can return to normalcy and economic growth.

Corruption in America

E-mails reveal Fed told AIG to keep quiet over bailout

Further damaging revelations about the US Government’s controversial rescue in 2008 of the insurer American International Group (AIG), suggest that the Federal Bank of New York, then headed by Tim Geithner, was behind a cover up.

Isn't this the same guy who forgot to pay his taxes? Is he an example of corruption? Shouldn't this man be fired by now?

Journalist who criticized Iraqi govt is murdered

'Iraqi authorities should conduct an immediate, full, and transparent investigation into the September 8, 2011 killing of Hadi al-Mahdi, a popular radio journalist often critical of the government, at his home in Baghdad, and prosecute those responsible, Human Rights Watch said today.

“The killing of Hadi al-Mahdi sadly highlights that journalism in Iraq remains a deadly profession,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “After more than six years of democratic rule, Iraqis who publicly express their views still do so at great peril.”

Witnesses at the crime scene told Human Rights Watch that they saw no evidence of a struggle or theft, suggesting that the killing was deliberate. Al-Mahdi’s cell phone, laptop, and other valuables were left in the house untouched.

Al-Mahdi, a freelance journalist and theater director, had been openly critical of government corruption and social inequality in Iraq. His popular talk radio program, “To Whoever Listens,” ran three times a week in Baghdad before he left the show two months ago. The program’s appeal was al-Mahdi’s fearless and scathing voice, laced with a sense of humor, Human Rights Watch said. Leading up to the country’s “Day of Anger” mass pro-democracy and anti-corruption demonstrations on February 25, he became increasingly involved as a vocal organizer of Iraq’s new protest movement in Baghdad.'

British "bosses didn't want to expose Iraqi police corruption"

'Bosses didn't want to expose Iraqi police corruption'

Henry McDonald, Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday December 24, 2007
The Guardian

Colin Williamson, 44, is a former member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who joined ArmorGroup in December 2004. As someone who had been used to liaising with the British army during his time with the RUC, he said that he was dismayed at the way the operation was run.

"The original, official role was to be training and mentoring the Iraqi police," Williamson said. He said that it soon became clear that they would be involved in security matters.

"This included the handling of sources, which was identical almost to the work I used to do back in Northern Ireland in liaison with British army there. My role was to go to certain Iraqi police stations on a daily basis in the Basra area. But we were told not to report back any intelligence we picked up there, not to hand it over to the British military. Why? Because our bosses and probably, in turn, the FCO didn't want to expose how corrupt and infiltrated by the militia the police were."

Williamson said he believed such intelligence could have been vital. "I ignored the order and, at first, put the intelligence I picked up on my report sheets for the company," he said. "But nobody wanted to know. So I told the military everything I could pick up. Because I had an impeccable source inside the Iraqi police who didn't want money, he just believed the militias shouldn't be attacking the army that came to Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

"This officer was a brilliant source of information in the Basra region. At one stage I was moved to a very dangerous place in the city called the Old State Building. This officer used to let me know in advance when there would be a mortar attack on the base. Each time he gave me prior warning I would go to a certain company commander, a major in the British army, and in turn warn him about it."

He added: 'I am convinced this man's information saved lives and yet our official line was not to tell the military about any intelligence we came across regarding the police and the militias. He was so well informed that on one occasion when he rang he said: 'You are about to be attacked at any moment' and before he could put down the phone the mortars came in."   continued

Iraqis protest corruption & lack of public services

"Several hundred Iraqi activists marked Valentine's Day with a protest for better services and governance in Baghdad on Monday, the latest in a series of small demonstrations across Iraq inspired by protester-driven upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia.

While most protesters here aren't aiming to topple the government – one that Iraqis voted for, despite its imperfections – they continue to complain of chronic corruption and lack of services."

"It's a criminal web...and the US is involved"

Many of you know already that BogIraq was murdered on April 11 in Baghdad while meeting with somebody to discuss alleged corruption involving USAID. I was shocked to read the news. BlogIraq and I did not always agree, but he was always friendly with me. He was a great writer, an Iraqi patriot who wanted Iraq to succeed, but was unwilling to accept corruption in Baghdad. So he sought to expose it, and he was killed for it. It is another sad chapter in the history of Iraq. Allah Yuruhma.

The day after I learned about BlogIraq's death, my father, who was also shocked and dismayed to read about BlogIraq's death, shared with me this 2006 article, which reminded me again of BlogIraq: IRAQ: USAID Provides Adviser to Iraq Government on Oil Law

"At the request of the U.S. State Department, the agency is providing a petroleum advisor to Iraq from February to June through its contract with BearingPoint, USAID spokesman David Snider told Dow Jones Newswires in an e-mail."

My father walked away from the computer and said "it's a criminal web." I said "and the US is involved." Damn, I can't believe I just said that, I thought. Could it be true? But then I thought more about it, and I realized the US has been involved for decades, and many crimes have been committed in the last 30 years with the knowledge of the US government.

Sadr City Base to Be One of Baghdad's Largest

A lot of information in this post. The Association of Muslim scholars actually condemned a terrorist attack!

Sadr City Base One of Baghdad's Largest
Fadhila Attacked for Corruption; Mass Graves in South
By ZEYAD Posted 9 hr. 50 min. ago
The Scoop from Key Arabic-Language Websites

Al-Melaf cites a senior security official that said U.S. troops are in the process of building one of the largest military bases in Baghdad in the middle of Sadr City, the Mahdi Army’s stronghold. The source said that U.S. military officers met with city elders who overwhelmingly approved the U.S. decision, which they said would largely improve security in their district. According to the website, construction of the base will start soon and will employ a large number of the city’s impoverished youth.

The Al-Shaheed Organization reports the discovery of a new mass grave during the construction of a new school in the industrial Iskan district on the Suq Al-Shiyoukh road, east of Nasiriya in southern Iraq. Iraqi police sources said a number of corpses were discovered at the site but without identifying documents, save for a ring on one corpse. Locals said that the area had witnessed clashes between Shi’ite rebels and Iraqi Republican Guards during the 1991 uprising in the south.

The Shaheed Organization also reports that tribal leaders in the Basrah Governorate are planning to write a detailed memo to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki complaining about the practices of the Fadhila Party, which dominates the Basrah Governorate Council and the local police force. The organization said the objections were due to the party’s monopoly over resources in the governorate, especially the oil industry. The memo reportedly includes detailed reports on financial and administrative corruption by party officials and the governor’s brother, who has cornered most reconstruction and commercial contracts in the southern city, as well as documents linking party members to illicit smuggling of oil through the Shatt Al-Arab waterway.

The Fadhila Party, a Sadrist offshoot movement, is led by Sheikh Mustafa Al-Yaqoubi in Najaf, but the party’s main power base is in Basrah, where they hold the governor position and constitute a majority in the governorate council. They have allegedly managed to control oil smuggling operations in southern Iraq through the Oil Ministry, which they have ran under the premiership of both Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim Ja’fari, until they were cast out under SCIRI and Da’wa pressure by independent candidate Dr. Hussein Al-Shahristani. Secretary-general of the Fadhila Party Nadim Al-Jabiri has also recently announced the party’s withdrawal from the main Shi’ite bloc in Iraqi parliament, where they hold 15 seats.

Deputy Speaker of Parliament Khalid Al-Attiya stated that Iraqi parliament received a request from the Higher Judicial Council to strip MP Abdul Nasir Al-Janabi (Sunni, Accord Front) of parliamentary immunity to face “terrorism-related charges,” according to the Al-Badeel Al-Iraqi website. Al-Janabi, who is a member of the National Dialogue Council – one of three Sunni parties forming the Iraqi Accord Front – for the Anbar Governorate, had a strong verbal argument with Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki during the discussion of the Baghdad security plan in parliament a few weeks ago. Maliki angrily threatened at the time to make public a file that incriminates Janabi for the disappearance of 150 civilians west of Baghdad. Al-Janabi, speaking in a telephone conversation from abroad, denied the charges and accused Maliki of fabrication and using the legislative branch of government in a political dispute, adding that he will return soon to face the charges.

WNA News reports that three major British military based in Basrah were attacked with Katyusha rockets yesterday. A spokeswoman for multinational forces in the south of Iraq stated that the British consulate in the Baradhi’iya district of Basrah was hit by 12 Katyusha rockets, while 16 rockets targeted the Shatt Al-Arab Hotel in downtown Basrah and five rockets hit the Basrah International Airport.

Ninewa Governor Duraid Kashmoula denied that two nephews of Saddam Hussein were among prisoners who had fled the Badush prison, northwest of Mosul, adding that they were not held at the prison in the first place, the Voices of Iraq Agency reported. Mosul police sources had said that 140 prisoners escaped the Badush prison following an attack by heavily armed militants. Sources from the Iraqi Justice Ministry put the number of prisoners who had fled at 70, while Mosul deputy police commander Colonel Mohammed Abdul Aziz said that 42 inmates who were arrested later while attempting to cross the Syrian border. The heavily fortified Badush prison, northwest of Mosul, is the second largest in Iraq after Abu Ghraib, and it has witnessed several jailbreaks over the last two years. One of Saddam’s nephews, Omar Sab’awi, had fled the prison three months ago.

The Haqq Agency reports that U.S. troops have captured a Mahdi Army death squad leader accused of abducting and murdering dozens of Sunni residents in the mixed Sha’ab district, north of Baghdad. Eyewitnesses said an American force supported by helicopters raided Hussein Al-Assadi’s house in the Dewan area of Sha’ab and detained him. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Rabita website quotes eyewitnesses who said U.S. troops also detained several Mahdi Army leaders in the Waleed and Shumookh areas of the Za’faraniya district, southeast of Baghdad. The residents said that the soldiers carried lists and were accompanied by masked informants who pointed out the houses of suspected Mahdi Army militiamen.

The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq issues statement No. 383 condemning the “terrorist attacks” in Hilla against the pilgrim processions heading to Karbala that killed and wounded dozens of civilians. The association held the “occupation and the current government” responsible for the lack of security and called on Iraqis to “exercise restraint and keep the country from spiraling further down the abyss.”

Corrupt Democrats, but it was for Israel you see

"Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington."

It's not surprising that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi support Israel, but sometimes they're caught doing something that really makes you wonder how much influence AIPAC has in Congress. Apparently these allegations are old, but there is new evidence, reported by a journalist named Jeff Stein, which suggests former Attorney General Gonzales killed the FBI investigation of Harman because she was for the Bush administration's desire to wiretap people without warrants. In any case, this story illustrates how influential AIPAC is, and it's not being covered by mainstream media except MSNBC (Countdown with Keith Olbermann thus far) and the LA Times:

'As Stein said, "It’s true that allegations of pro-Israel lobbyists trying to help Harman get the chairmanship of the intelligence panel by lobbying and raising money for Pelosi aren’t new." Neither, he said, is the allegation that the FBI dropped its investigation of the case for "a lack of evidence."

What is new, Stein said, is word from intelligence sources about the court-approved NSA tap, and about this nugget: those same sources say the case was dropped not for lack of evidence but because of pressure from Bush Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, who apparently hoped in return that Harman would help President Bush win approval for its warrantless wiretap program.'

So Bush's Attorney General obstructed an FBI investigation, killed it in fact, in order to protect a conservative Democrat who was pro-Bush in some ways, including in the very important Israel category, which can't be bad, right? I wonder if the only reason MSNBC (a very liberal news show) has covered this story is because it implicates the hated Bush administration with corruption charges. If true, both Democrats and Republicans can be accused of corruption in this case, which should not be at all surprising.

Even Iraq's Kurds are sick of corruption

"There is no justice in the Kurdistan region. Most of the politicians have accumulated huge wealth due to the corruption," said one of the protesters, 25-year-old Hindrin Jabar, an unemployed college graduate. "The government keeps giving false promises with no action."

Sistani calls for progress

'The spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite majority urged politicians on Saturday to slash their benefits and improve public services, a day after thousands took part in a deadly nationwide "Day of Rage".

The cabinet is to dedicate its meeting on Sunday to the issues raised in the Friday protests, while a human rights group said investigations had to be opened into the deaths of demonstrators who rallied against high levels of corruption, unemployment and poor public services.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said the government needed to make progress on improving power supplies, providing food for the needy, creating jobs and combating corruption.

He also called on Iraq's leaders to "cancel unacceptable benefits" given to current and former politicians, and said they must "not invent unnecessary government positions that cost Iraq money".'

Corruption in Iraq is visible and disgusting

'The manager of one of the conference hotels said the summit reeked of corruption. The hotel he oversaw had cost more than $20 million to renovate, but there was no way all that money had gone into the project, he said, pointing out the many imperfections. He said his company could've built an 800-room deluxe hotel in Dubai for that price.

"So where did all the money go? In the bellies!" he said with a laugh, patting his midsection for emphasis.

On social media platforms, Iraqi leaders were ripped as tasteless for serving VIP guests a dessert of dates dipped in 24-karat gold in a war-ravaged country where thousands of women were forced to sell off their gold to pay their husbands' and sons' kidnap ransoms.'

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/05/2733854_p2/iraq-unstable-sectarian-with-signs.html#storylink=cpy

Iraqi govt finally tackling corruption

It looks like the Iraqi government is trying hard to clean up its image before the elections. It's a bit late, in my opinion.

Iraq trade minister resigns amid scandal

Published: May 25, 2009 at 3:59 PM

BAGHDAD, May 25 (UPI) -- Iraqi Trade Minister Falah al-Sudany, accused of bribery, has resigned ahead of a scheduled vote of no confidence in parliament, officials said Monday.

Sudany was the first Cabinet minister in the history of the modern Iraqi state, dating back to the 1920s, made to publicly answer corruption charges, McClatchy Newspapers reported.

Sudany was interrogated on national television over a two-day period, struggling to answer a list of bribery allegations brought by the head of parliament's Integrity Committee, who alleged that Sudany and his brothers took a $40 kickback for every ton of rice imported into Iraq, the news service said.

A vote of no-confidence was set for Tuesday.

McClatchy said the Integrity Committee is also preparing to quiz other government agency officials, such as the ministers of electricity and oil.