Corruption In Iraq & World

Baghdad Embassy Report: Corruption is "Norm" Within Iraqi Government

Below iare several recent articles about a recent internal State Dept. report on Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) and the problems with corruption in the Iraqi government. Unlike the article says, it was not a "Secret" classified report, but a "Sensitive" report. I don't know how the Nation got it (it came from NPR, and was hinted at in the Washington Post article added below), but the article below is about issues that were known in 2005. I helped set up CPI in 2004 and 2005, and the biggest problem is that the central government would not let CPI investigate Ministry officials without approval of the Iraqi Minister, which they rarely gave. Then, if the case got to the courts, the courts wouldn't hear the cases. I am worried that the central government will find a way to replace the CPI Commissioner and staff (they have a five year appointment, and that started in mid-2004) so cronies can run the shop. CPI was set up by new Iraqi law written by Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to be independent so no one could replace the CPI Commisioner.

Most of the info about corruption in the various Ministries was known even in 2005 when I was there. The Health Dept. was really corrupt, since they were run by a Shia Minister and they replaced the Inspector General with a crony I met several times. (Might have changed since 2005, but I doubt it). Additionally, there was a separate group that distributed drugs to the hospitals, and they were considered to be like a Health "mafia". Even then, we could not get those issues, and enforcement of anti-corruption programs to be supported by the State Dept. when they negotiated with the Iraqi government on issues.

It also was not uncommon for auditors investigating corruption to be assassinated. In mid-2004, just after Paul Bremer left the country, the head of the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit (BSA), who I had met twice, was assassinated because he was pushing investigations of the UN's Oil for Food corruption on the Iraqi side.

Thus, I repeat my continuous mantra - the US should never give funds or supplies to ANY country that has not cleaned up corruption and established an effective, independent, and supported anti-corruption agency. Instead, as the last paragraph in the article says, anti-corruption efforts is NOT one of the 18 performance benchmarks set for the Iraqi government.

The article says CPI has only 134 investigators, but they have a total staff of over 1,000, including public affairs people, attorneys, etc.
vj
Note: There was NO author name posted with this article.
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from TheNation.com
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=228339

Secret Report: Corruption is "Norm" Within Iraqi Government
Posted 08/30/2007 @ 3:07pm

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.

******

Here is a Sept. 4, 2007 follow up editorial from another source...
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http://www.reformer.com/editorials/ci_6795699

No surprises in Iraq
Reformer.com
Brattleboro Reformer

Tuesday, September 4
President Bush and his top advisors made another one of those "surprise" visits to Iraq on Monday.

The last time Bush made an impromptu stop in Iraq was in June 2006, when he came to see Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to -- as Bush said later that day in a speech to American soldiers -- "look at (al-Maliki) in the eyes and determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are."

In Bush's view that day, "I believe he is."

More than a year later, Bush returned to an Iraq that has seen little if any improvement in a variety of areas.

How little improvement? A State Department report leaked over the weekend to National Public Radio and The Nation concluded that the al-Maliki government is "not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anti-corruption laws" and that al-Maliki's office has impeded investigations into fraud and crime within the Iraqi government.

The al-Maliki government, according to the 70-page report, is riddled with corruption and criminals. The Interior Ministry is a stronghold of Shia militias and has used U.S. weapons and money to commit crimes such as kidnapping, extortion and bribery. Iraqi investigators make little headway because they don't have staff or resources to conduct investigations and fear they will be killed if they pursue their cases too vigorously.

Reining in corruption is not one of the 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for Iraq and the al-Maliki government. If it was, the government would get a failing grade.

Corruption aside, the al-Maliki government is already graded as failing in 15 of those benchmarks, according to a draft of a report by the Government Accountability Office that was leaked to The Washington Post late last week.

The GAO has conducted more than 100 investigations of various aspects of the U.S. occupation of Iraq over the last four years, so its staff knows what it's talking about. The 69-page draft was leaked to the Post by a government official who feared that the GAO's conclusions would get watered down in the final report.

The White House and the Pentagon are claiming that at least eight of the 18 benchmarks have been met. However, both are apparently grading the Iraqis more leniently than the GAO.

The GAO report found that only one of the eight political benchmarks -- protection of the rights of minority parties -- has been met. On the others, including legislation on constitutional reform, new oil laws and de-Baathification, the GAO hands out failing grades.

As for the nine security benchmarks, the GAO report found the Iraqis have met only two and contradicts the White House's contentions that violence is down in Iraq and that there are more Iraqi security forces ready to operate without U.S. assistance.

The GAO report found the level of violence has been essentially unchanged since the start of the Bush administration's so-called troop surge. It also found that the number of capable Iraqi units has declined, from 10 in March to six in July.

This month is supposed to be the month that will determine the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq. The much-hyped report by Gen. David Petraeus and Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker will be presented to Congress next week. There are now 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the highest number since the war began, and President Bush is seeking another $200 billion from Congress to keep the Iraqi occupation going.

The White House claims everything is coming up roses in Iraq, and the Crocker/Petraeus report will likely reflect that. The reality is that Iraq still has a corrupt and incompetent government unable to deliver even basic services to its people. It still is seeing violence on an unimaginable scale. It is perilously close to being a failed state. No amount of spin or P.R. can change this reality.

Sadly, there is little chance of seeing a change in policy as long as Bush is president. But a change is clearly needed, and needed soon.
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See also the NPR radio originating info on this article at: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/89778/21311987
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Here is an earlier June article from the Washington Post that we added here on Sept. 5.

Shhh . . . There Is Corruption in Iraq

By Walter Pincus
Monday, June 25, 2007; Page A17

Senior Iraqi cabinet members over a six-month period blocked investigations and prosecutions of corruption within their ministries valued at $35 million, using a Saddam Hussein-era law meant to shield officials from political abuses of the justice system, according to a recent memo by an official at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reinstated the law, under which no governmental corruption case can be instituted against an Iraqi minister or former minister without the minister's permission. The ministers can, in turn, selectively immunize their subordinates, thus protecting them from being prosecuted for corruption.

As a result, more than 48 investigations or prosecutions initiated between September 2006 and February 2007 by Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) were stopped, according to the March 11, 2007, memo prepared for the embassy's Anti-corruption Working Group.

It warns that the number 48 may be an understatement, since ministers asked to see if the immunity law may apply "simply hold on to the cases indefinitely thereby de facto blocking the trial."

The already blocked cases involved possible corruption at 11 ministries and the government's Central Bank. These included probes of contracts aiding rehabilitation of the devastated Iraqi economy, for power plant repairs, bridges and oil production equipment; the theft of dozens of oil trucks carrying a half-million dollars' worth of oil; and "violations" of a contract for armor vests, the memo stated.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said Maliki's reestablishment of the law -- known as Article 136(b) of the Criminal Procedures Code -- "effectively creates an undemocratic bulwark against the enforcement efforts to fight corruption in Iraq." During his recent visit to Baghdad, Bowen said use of the law came up in discussions in which CPI personnel told him "about political interference with the work of these Iraqi anti-corruption entities."

The first U.S. administrator in occupied Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, suspended Article 136(b) in January 2004 when he established the integrity commission as an independent agency to carry out corruption investigations. But two succeeding Iraqi prime ministers, Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jafari, brought back immunity for ministers because "they felt anti-corruption prosecutions were targeting on the basis of politics," states the memo, originally written by Vincent Foulk, a U.S. official who is a consultant to the commission.

The memo attributes the Maliki government's repeated use of the immunity law partly to politics. An aide to Bowen said last week that in some cases administrative errors had indeed been transformed into criminal investigations because of political motives.

The memo supports such a possibility, noting that U.S. advisers to the CPI estimated that 20 of the 48 cases could be considered administrative rather than criminal.

The quashed CPI probes included investigations of Central Bank employees who released $14.7 million despite an Agriculture Ministry letter opposing that action; Oil Ministry personnel who manipulated bids for $2.5 million in contracts for pumps and fuel equipment; and others at the Oil Ministry who stole 33 trucks loaded with petroleum. The Electricity Ministry also had bidding irregularities in a $3 million contract, the Youth and Sport Ministry had $3.5 million in contract irregularities, and the Supreme Electoral Commission was being investigated for a $5 million illegal advertising contract.

The memo listed the political affiliations of those caught up in the investigations. Many Central Bank and Agriculture Ministry cases involve followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, while oil cases involve the main Shiite political group.

"Although the law contemplated application after the Investigative Judge finished his investigation, it has been used under the current regime to stop investigations prior to the decision of the Investigative Judge," the memo says.

Bowen and others have made clear that these cases represent only part of the problem. At a May 22 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Bowen, Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) referred to Maliki's order, saying, "The Iraqi government is clearly misguided in some of its priorities." Bowen replied: "Corruption, fraud within the Iraqi system is rampant, and the power of the fraud-fighting entities to push it back is weak."

At last week's hearing, Bowen said that the CPI commissioner "currently has over 2,000 cases involving $5 billion in alleged corruption." He added, "The president of the Board of Supreme Audit has hundreds of audits ongoing, and in virtually every case -- as he's reported to us -- he has found a serious lack of accountability within the Iraqi government."

National security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus pores over the speeches, reports, transcripts and other documents that flood Washington, and every week uncovers the fine print that rarely makes headlines -- but should. If you have any items that fit the bill, please send them to fineprint@washpost.com.

US Army to Probe for Waste, Fraud & Abuse in $3 Billion of Contracts in Iraq

Well, the article below explains that the US Army finally stepped up to the plate to investigate procurement contract fraud related to goods purchased for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Below today's article is an article published yesterday in Newsday that may have led to the announcements below.

A plus is that this article mentions that Army Secretary "Geren has also formed a special commission to examine long-term solutions to improve the Army's weapons and supply contracting process. " In my experience, this is the bigger problem. If you have a lousy method to process orders, you can't catch the bad guys. A GOOD process with transaction and batch controls prevents the bad guys from finding easy ways to commit fraud. That is what I saw in Baghdad where the Army didn't even have a system to track whether requisitions were properly handed off from one internal process unit to another, and they didn't have a backend system to track that all ordered items were delivered to the ordering agency on a timely basis.

There was NO ONE with the responsibility over the seven separate units processing procurements, thus they had no way to know how bad it was until I started bringing in requisitions that had been lost for a year because the contracts group didn't have a quality control process to prevent typos in phone numbers, addresses, and other critical data entered into purchase orders by very inexperienced enlisted personnel who did the data entry.

As a consequence, they had an extremely amateurish, fragmented system for procurement that allowed thousands of shipments to arrive in country without any identification information on who ordered it, thus the items were given to other units (that happened to ammunition my unit ordered), allowed to sit in massive warehouses, or were stolen.

The problem is that Iraq required an ad hoc set up of many new systems and the standard, centralized rules bound methods used in the US could not be used in Iraq, and the Army had no experience in setting up well controlled administrative systems from scratch, especially when officers from the Air Force and Navy rotated out of positions every 3-6 months. I had full Bird Colonels over the "contract office" yelling at me and trying intimidation when I asked about the above failures - all the military people were used to having the US based system, and didn't have skills to develop or understand well controlled systems that needed to be developed in an unstructured environment.

In contrast, many years ago I worked at ARCO, the oil company, and they had to establish field administration and control systems from scratch in the Alaskan Pipeline system, and they had similar problems, but they caught them in the first 1-2 years due to extensive auditing, and cleaned up the system problems quickly.
vj
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Note: The orginating DoD press release for this info is at:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=47209

Army to Probe $3 Billion of Contracts in Iraq

By Richard Lardner
Associated Press
Thursday, August 30, 2007; Page D08

The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse, service officials said yesterday.

Overall, the contracts are worth close to $3 billion and represent every transaction from 2003 to 2007 by a contracting office in Kuwait, which the Army has identified as a significant trouble spot.

Army Secretary Pete Geren says the investigation will include every transaction made by the contracting office in Kuwait since 2003.

Pentagon Procurement

The Defense Department's process for acquiring weapons and other equipment has been rocked by recent scandals and the scrutiny of the "revolving door" that can benefit former Pentagon officials.

Among the contracts to be reviewed are awards to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which has received billions of dollars since 2001 to be a major provider of food and shelter services to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The officials did not specify which KBR contracts would be examined or their value.

The announcement, made by Army Secretary Pete Geren, comes as the number of criminal cases related to the acquisition of weapons and other supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has grown to 76. Twenty military and civilian Army employees have been indicted on charges of contract fraud.

"There have been reported cases of fraud, waste and abuse of contracting operations, with many of the worst cases originating out of Kuwait," Geren said.

Geren said that the Army has been auditing the contracting operation in Kuwait for more than a year. He acknowledged that the expanding list of criminal investigations was a factor in appointing a special task force headed by a three-star general.

"There is fraud," Geren said. "We have seen more cases lately, and that's cause for concern."

Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson has been empowered to do whatever he determines necessary "to prevent any further abuse, fraud or waste," Geren said.

Thompson, the military deputy to the Army's top civilian acquisition official, said that his task force will "make sure that we've identified anything that needs to be looked at that hasn't been already been picked up by an ongoing investigation."

By Sept. 30, Thompson said he plans to boost the number of employees in the Kuwait office by 35, giving it a staff of 90.

"We already know from our internal looks over the last few months in Kuwait that the experience level of some of the people -- not all of the people that we had in Kuwait -- wasn't up to the challenge or the complexity of the contracts," Thompson said.

By Jan. 1, contracts worth more than $1 million will be handled by the Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir, which has more staff able to deal with larger, more complex procurements, Thompson said.

In late 2005, the Army began audits, and its Criminal Investigation Command accelerated its inquiries into contract fraud in Kuwait, according to an Army news release. The command first established an Iraq Fraud Detachment and then a Kuwait office, both staffed with specially trained agents.

By early 2007, the Army had reorganized the Kuwait office, provided ethics training for employees and added a legal team.

Geren has also formed a special commission to examine long-term solutions to improve the Army's weapons and supply contracting process. That team will be headed by Jacques Gansler, a former under secretary of defense for acquisition, and its report is due in 45 days.

The Pentagon is also sending a team of investigators, led by Inspector General Claude M. Kicklighter, to examine problems with "weapons and munitions purchased by the U.S. government and intended for use by Iraqi security forces," said Chris Isleib, a Pentagon spokesman.

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Here is an article posted a day earlier on Newsday which may have led to the above article.
vj

newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpirq295350177aug29,0,949654.story
Newsday.com
Missing arms in Iraq - fraud or imcompetence?

August 29, 2007

The disturbing question of huge quantities of missing U.S. weapons supplied to Iraqi forces is now rippling out into an international scandal, with criminal investigations and indictments for fraud operations involving billions of dollars.

Erupting at a time when public support for the war is sinking ever lower, the missing arms debacle goes beyond poor record-keeping and lack of adequate weapons tracking systems at the Pentagon.

To incompetence and expediency is added the possibility of the criminal involvement of at least one senior U.S. military officer who once reported to Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, according to a news report in the New York Times.

It all began earlier this summer, with a General Accountability Office report that more than 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 Glock pistols, 135,000 pieces of body armor and 115,000 Kevlar helmets issued to Iraqi security forces could not be accounted for.

Later, Amnesty International researchers found that hundreds of thousands of U.S.-approved arms transfers from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Iraq - more than 90 tons of AK-47s - could also be missing.

Now, U.S. investigators are uncovering what may turn out to be the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks in the Iraq war. Petraeus himself is not under investigation, but he has conceded that in the rush to supply arms to Iraqi forces to combat a fast-growing insurgency in 2004 and 2005, arms were delivered without a tracking system in place. That's understandable, perhaps. But the possibility of weapons fraud on a massive scale is inexcusable, and it will cast a shadow on Petraeus' expected report next month on the progress of the U.S. troop surge.

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.

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Here is the US Army news release on this topic:
from:
http://www.army.mil/-newsreleases/2007/08/29/4653-army-takes-further-action-to-fight-fraud/

Army Takes Further Action to Fight Fraud

Aug 29, 2007

Throughout 2007 the Army has undertaken a rigorous effort to remediate weaknesses in contracting. Today, the Secretary of the Army has established two efforts to broaden the Army's ongoing efforts to ensure policies and procedures are in place for all joint, expeditionary contracting operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait and better prepare the Army for acquisition and logistical support of combat operations in the future.

First, a Special Commission on Army Contracting has been given a broad charter to examine current operations as well as to ensure future contracting operations are more effective, efficient and transparent and report back in 45 days.

Second, an Army Task Force has been stood up to reinforce and immediately address existing contracting issues and aggressively implement fixes as problems are identified.

The Special Commission on Army Contracting will be led by the Honorable Jacques Gansler, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The Commission will fully examine theater acquisition and program management processes; review management controls to prevent fraud, waste and abuse; assess legislative needs; and recommend changes in policies and procedures.

"The Commission will take a big picture look and ensure we are properly organized to support Army and Joint Force expeditionary operations in an era of persistent conflict," Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said. "The Commission will look at how we currently are doing things and how we should be doing things, and examine policies and procedures in the world of contracting and logistics - even the way we promote those who are serving in our contracting forces."

Dr. Gansler, a professor at the University of Maryland, has vast experience with contracting issues and is one of the most respected members of our nation's acquisition community. From 1997 to 2001 he served as the Under Secretary for Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics where he led the Department's work in Acquisition Reform. He also served as Vice Chairman, Defense Science Board; Chairman, Board of Visitors, Defense Acquisition University; Director, Procurement Round Table; member of the FAA Blue Ribbon Panel on Acquisition Reform; and senior consultant to the "Packard Commission" on Defense Acquisition Reform. Other members of the commission include Mr. David Berteau, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics; retired Gen. Lester Lyles, former commander, Air Force Materiel Command; retired Gen. Leon Salomon, former commander, Army Materiel Command; Mr. George Singley, retired former SAIC Group president and career Army acquisition official. Col. George A. Sears, Commander, Contracting Center of Excellence, is serving as executive officer for the commission.

The Department of the Army began audits and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, commonly known as CID, increased investigative activity into allegations of corrupt contracting in Southwest Asia in late 2005. Deployed commanders also expressed their concerns and requested the Department send in additional CID Special Agents, auditors and contract specialists from the Army Audit Agency and from CID. In 2005, CID established the Iraq Fraud Detachment and in 2006, CID established the Kuwait Fraud Office - both staffed with specially-trained CID Special Agents. Throughout the investigation, the Army has provided timely updates to Congress and has taken corrective actions as warranted.

In February 2007, after then Secretary of the Army Dr. Francis Harvey was briefed on the matter, he directed action to correct deficiencies. Dr. Harvey tasked the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (ASA(ALT)) to assess contracting activities throughout Central Command (CENTCOM) and to implement a Contracting Action Plan.

In response, in March 2007 ASA(ALT) deployed a senior contracting Operations Review Team to review all contract operations and in April began implementing a Contracting Action Plan which reorganized the Kuwait Contracting office, installed new leadership, established a Joint logistics procurement support board, increased staffing and deployed senior contracting professionals and attorneys to Kuwait, and provided ethics training and organic legal support.

"We've been doing quite a lot in this area for over a year, and now we're doing more," Geren said.

A second independent, but complementary effort is an Army Internal Task Force led by Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson, Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, and Ms. Kathryn Condon, Executive Deputy to the Commanding General, Army Materiel Command.

"The Army Task Force will take an intensive look at current operations and implement reforms and corrections immediately," Geren said. "Based on earlier findings, the Army already has taken several actions and will continue to implement a number of recommendations, including transferring contracting authority for major contracts from Kuwait to Army Materiel Command, reviewing past contract actions and establishing Requirements and Contract Teams in Kuwait by September 30."

As of August 28, there are 76 ongoing criminal investigations involving contract fraud committed against the U.S. military in the Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait theater of operations.

As the scope and scale of contracting in Southwest Asia has evolved, the Army has recognized the need to assess its contract management capacity. The Army went from supporting one Kuwait base camp in 2002 to supporting eight in 2007. Contracts increased from $150 million in 2002 to nearly $1 billion in 2006. While 20 military and civilian Army employees have been indicted on charges of contract fraud, the vast majority of Army contracting professionals fulfill operational requirements everyday for Soldiers serving in harm's way. With no exceptions, we continue to expect every Soldier and Army Civilian to reflect Army Values and the high standards to which the entire Army adheres, regardless of its mission area.

Last updated Wednesday 29 August, 2007 07:00 PM EST

Wikipedia is a source for basic information on anti-corruption

Wikipedia.com - the huge online "open" encyclopedia, has a political corruption section at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption

It is an interesting source of background on definitions, concepts, etc.  However, remember that Wikipedia allows anyone to edit information on

a page, so someone might post how a country has a really low ranking in the Transparency International anti-corruption index, and someone from

that country could edit that section out later.

Below is an extraction from the introduction:

In broad terms, political corruption is the misuse by government officials of their governmental powers for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of

government power for other purposes, like repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political

corruption. Illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government is not considered political corruption

either.

All forms of government are susceptible to political corruption. Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism,

patronage, graft, and embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and

trafficking, it is not restricted to these organized crime activities. In some nations corruption is so common that it is expected when ordinary

businesses or citizens interact with government officials. The end-point of political corruption is a kleptocracy, literally "rule by thieves".

What constitutes illegal corruption differs depending on the country or jurisdiction. Certain political funding practices that are legal in one

place may be illegal in another. In some countries, government officials have broad or not well defined powers, and the line between what is

legal and illegal can be difficult to draw.

vj

Are Women Elected Officials an Anti-dote to Corruption for Sierra Leone?

This article describes some of the corruption problems and effects in Sierra Leone.  Several quotes also bring up the idea that electing women would reduce corruption because they are less willing to do such things.  In most of my reading, I don't think I read even once of a woman convicted of corruption - it is mostly a male specialty!
vj

from  www.AllAfrica.com
Women As an Antidote to Corruption?

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
ANALYSIS
10 August 2007
Posted to the web 10 August 2007

By Mohamed Fofanah
Freetown

Sierra Leone will hold general elections Saturday with a number of significant achievements in hand, not least maintaining peace for five years.

Between 1991 and 2002, the country was wracked by a brutal civil war that pitted government forces and other militants against the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), notorious for its amputation of limbs as part of a terror campaign to control civilians.

Two polls have been successfully completed since the end of the conflict, efforts made to integrate demobilised combatants into civilian life, and also to retrain the army -- which has mounted several coups in this West African country since it gained independence in 1961. In addition, millions of dollars in aid have been spent on rebuilding the state.

However, " corruption, fuelled no doubt in part by extremely low civil service pay and emoluments, remains the elephant in the room," notes the International Crisis Group (ICC), a Brussels-based think tank, in a Jul. 12 report: 'Sierra Leone: The Election Opportunity'.

Sierra Leone came 148th of the 163 nations surveyed for the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), produced annually by the Berlin-based graft watchdog, Transparency International. It scored 2.2 on a scale of zero to 10 used for the CPI; a rating of less than three indicates that "corruption is perceived as rampant" in the public sector of the country concerned, notes Transparency in the Nov. 6 press release for the last year's index.

An Anti-Corruption Commission has proved unable to turn the tide. Commission head Henry Joko Smart "...has focused almost exclusively on junior and mid-level officials," says the ICC, "thus sending the wrong message about endemic corruption."

To date, those convicted of graft have included a caterer at a mental hospital, the accounts officer of a library, and the headmaster of a primary school -- all implicated in embezzling small amounts of money.

The failure to curb corruption has resulted in a drain on government funds needed for social services -- important in any country, but perhaps especially so in Sierra Leone where under-development fuelled by graft was one of the key contributors to the 11-year civil war.

Certain woman candidates have seized on this dismal track record in their campaigns to win a place in Sierra Leone's 112-seat parliament. The outgoing legislature is dominated by men: just 14.5 percent of posts in this institution were female hands. Of the 566 people contesting the Aug. 11 legislative poll, 64 are women.

"We are less corrupt than men," says Luciana James, a candidate for the People's Movement for Democratic Change.

Notes Husainatu Jalloh, running on behalf of the United Peoples Party: "Women are naturally afraid of disgrace; that's our make-up, and we know that women suffer more in corrupt countries. We spite (reject) corruption, and that is what I have been telling my people."

Sierra Leone has the world's highest maternal and child mortality rates, according to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report. In an overall assessment of development, the country ranked 176 th of the 177 nations listed.

Some three quarters of people in Sierra Leone live on less than two dollars a day, notes the U.N. report, and unemployment is widespread.

While the country has extensive diamond reserves that could contribute substantially to alleviating poverty, it is estimated to be losing substantial amounts of tax revenue through smuggling of the gems. Diamonds were also used to fund the recent civil war, with former Liberian president Charles Taylor -- now being tried for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone -- having supplied the RUF with weapons in exchange for diamonds.

"I tell my constituency that if corruption is to be tackled, every Sierra Leonean has to decide that they want to be corruption-free, and then we strengthen the structures we use to fight corruption -- and we put women in parliament and ministries and parastatals," says Elizabeth Lavalie, a candidate for the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), and deputy speaker of the recently dissolved parliament. "Then we would (be) on a strong footing in fighting corruption."

Are these women right in believing that female legislators will automatically take the high ground when it comes to graft?

Kadijatu Barrie, for one, appears to have reservations on this matter. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate said during her campaign that -- if elected -- she would look into whether any women in public office had been involved in graft. The NDA is the only party to field a female vice-presidential candidate.

But, notes the ICC, "Rooting it (corruption) out requires more than higher salaries or occasional exposure and prosecution of an official. It demands a thorough review of the system perpetuating the practice."

Seven parties are contesting the elections, with the SLPP, the All People's Congress and the People's Movement for Democratic Change considered the front runners.

SLPP presidential candidate Solomon Berewa, the current vice-president, is tipped to win the poll that will decide the next head of state.

About 2.6 million people are registered to vote. The latest census puts Sierra Leone's population at approximately five million.

Bribe payers in Puerto Rico caught getting boosted scores on medical exams.

The article below provides an example of people recently getting busted for paying bribes in Puerto Rico to obtain illegal doctor licenses, which is the same problem that Iraq has.   It was very common in Iraq for students to be forced to pay bribes to get into classes, or graduate from college.  Additionally, workers in government agencies could only get increased salary through seniority, or by increased education.  That existed because they used the communist socialist system where there was no merit pay system, or variable promotion system.  So it was common to provide falsified certificates for doctorate degrees to get higher pay and move up in government agencies.  While I was there, the Iraqi Anti-corruption agency, CPI,  reviewed the legitimacy of degrees of a sample of higher paid professionals and  found about 200 that had provided false degrees to qualify for wage increases.

In the 1970's when I was working as an internal auditor at the County of Los Angeles, I sat on interview boards for people applying for the internal audit department.  We must have interviewed 400 applicants, and many provided certificates for accounting degrees from Egypt or the Phillipines, but yet when I asked them simple accounting related questions, they couldn't answer.  Almost all the degrees from Egypt looked the same.  Additionally, many did not speak english.  Our interviews were in person, so we could pick up on language problems.  However, many accounting related jobs in the County were filled based upon written only exams where the hiring manager could only hire one of the top 3 candidates.  We heard many comments that none of the top 3 actually knew the subject, but the manager was forced by County civil service to pick from the 3 - he couldn't drop down further in the list.  In some cases, we believed that candidates with high scores on the written tests must have had someone else take the test for them, but never could prove it.  As a consequence, there were entire departments in the Health department, as well as the Public Guardian (they handle the estates of people who die without any heirs) where hardly anyone spoke english.  I personally went to review some records at the Public Guardian, and there were maybe 40 accountants, ALL from Egypt, and many could not speak english.  We had to go to Egyptian managers to get translations. 

So, don't you feel better if you have medical coverage from an HMO and you get a medical doctor that doesn't speak english well??   And, what happens if a government agency does NOT require excellent writing and speaking skills in english for job candidates.  In California, the City of Los Angeles HR department resisted disqualification of candidates for accounting jobs when I sat on interview boards BECAUSE the job description did not specifically require english skills.  Thus if you work in a government agency, you might want to ensure ALL the job descriptions require english speaking and writing skills or the HR department might fill your next interview lists with non-english speakers.

VJ

================================================================

From
http://www.townhall.com/news/world/2007/08/02/fraud_probe_targets_puerto_rico_doctors

Fraud Probe Targets Puerto Rico Doctors
By DANICA COTO    
Thursday, August 2, 2007

U.S. federal agents arrested dozens of doctors accused of obtaining medical licenses through fraud or bribery, carrying out sweeping raids across Puerto Rico Thursday.

A federal grand jury indicted 88 doctors following an investigation into members of the U.S. Caribbean territory's medical licensing board, who allegedly altered low-scoring tests to certify unqualified candidates.

The doctors, mostly Puerto Ricans who studied medicine in the Dominican Republic, Mexico or Cuba, paid board members bribes of as much as $10,000, according to the indictment. At least 75 were practicing medicine in Puerto Rico, including some at hospitals or emergency rooms, authorities said.

The arrests began near dawn. Some suspects _ including Pablo Valentin, a former executive director of the licensing board _ were seen on television being led away by local police and agents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Drug Enforcement Administration also is checking pharmacy records to determine whether the suspects prescribed medications, which could prompt felony charges as violations of the Controlled Substances Act, spokesman Waldo Santiago said.

Most of the suspects failed the licensing exam multiple times. One man who earned a medical degree in Spain failed the exam 16 times between 1974 and 2001 before he was granted a medical license in 2002, according to the indictment.

"We cannot allow doctors who obtained their license in an irregular way to practice medicine," said Rosa Perez Perdomo, Puerto Rico's Health Department secretary. "The health of Puerto Ricans has to be protected at all costs."

She called it "a very unfortunate situation," but said the fraudulent doctors' patients would have no shortage of alternatives among legitimate health care providers in Puerto Rico, where about 10,000 doctors serve a population of 4 million.

At least five U.S. states recognize Puerto Rican medical licenses _ Arizona, Florida, New York, Texas and Virginia _ but Perdomo said none of the suspects were known to have practiced medicine on the U.S. mainland, according to Puerto Rico's medical licensing board. The Arizona Medical Board said it requires all physicians to pass a U.S. licensing exam before they are issued a state license.

In many of the alleged fraud cases, an intermediary would approach a candidate who received a failing test by mail and offer to connect them with board officials who could help, authorities said.

Yolanda Rodriguez, a former board secretary who also was indicted, allegedly received the exams from the intermediaries, cut-and-pasted passages from passing exams, and photocopied the doctored exams for submission as authentic versions, according to court documents.

The defendants face charges including mail fraud and making false statements to Medicare. If convicted, most face prison sentences of five to 20 years, said interim U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez.

The Puerto Rican legislature has been questioning members of the board as part of a fraud investigation that began in May.

The board's president, Milton Carrero, said the federal indictments have persuaded the board to expand an internal probe as well, scrutinizing licenses issued before 2001.

"There were people inside who defrauded the confidence of everyone," said Carrero, who was chosen as president after Puerto Rico's governor began removing four members for negligence. He said new security measures have been taken, including the installation of cameras in the room where medical licenses are kept.

"There is no doubt that changes at the licensing board are happening and will continue to happen," Carrero said.

       
       

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