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.