Shhh, but there’s corruption in Iraq

By Joel Brinkley

When the nation’s military leaders met with President Obama last week to discuss Iraq, I hope they passed on a bit of good news. A few days ago, Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki fired a police chief in Wasit province who was a political rival.

That caused controversy and accusations of political manipulation, two weeks before Iraq’s municipal elections. Does any of that sound familiar? It reminds me of the political outcry two years ago when the Bush administration fired eight U.S. attorneys whose political views clashed with White House doctrine.

Maliki claimed that this man, Maj. Gen. Abdul Haneen al-Amara, was failing to uphold election laws because he hadn’t prosecuted anyone for tearing down campaign posters that candidates from Maliki’s political party had put up.

The good news is not that Maliki decided to fire him. No, the encouraging development is that Maliki’s decision caused a controversy. His political opponents protested and refused to accept the president’s choice of a replacement. In Washington two years ago, the Senate set about changing the law that permitted the president to appoint U.S. attorneys without the Senate’s consent. Isn’t that the way a democracy is supposed to work? When the United States drafted its Constitution more than 220 years ago, the founders had few real historical precedents on which to base their decisions. That’s what makes the document such a work of genius. Of course, by the time the United States began pushing Iraq to create a democratic government, starting in 2003, much of the world had already made that transition. The problems and possibilities were well-known.

Today, democracy in Iraq is rough-edged — just as life there is brutal, dangerous and totally unpredictable. During the few days that the state has debated the firing of Gen. Amara, at least two candidates for office have been murdered.

Endemic corruption

But a more serious problem is gnawing at the country, one that could easily destroy it, even as democracy seems to be taking hold: Endemic corruption that can tear a nation apart.

The United States has suffered from serious corruption problems from its earliest days — through to this moment. Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois is living proof. But the instinct here, generally, is to prosecute and correct. Iraq is heading in the opposite direction.

In Transparency International’s lasted corruption index, only two states out of 180, Somalia and Burma, are judged to be more corrupt than Iraq. Over the last several years, Iraqi government officers have embezzled not only uncounted billions of dollars from their own treasury — but also $18 billion in American aid. Early last year, Iraq’s Integrity Commission found that oil workers in Basra were stealing up to 500,000 barrels of oil a day.

A year ago, Maliki arranged an anti-corruption meeting and declared 2008 “the anti-corruption year.” But then, he chose to be in London on the day the meeting was held. From there he blamed the endemic corruption on Saddam Hussein. It’s “a bad phenomenon we inherited from the former regime,” he averred.

Fast forward a year. Last month, the new head of Iraq’s Integrity Commission, Judge Ibrahim al-Ukayli, gave a rare interview, to a London-based Saudi newsletter. Corruption scandals, he said, “defame the country more than they defame corrupt officials. When a country is seen to be rife with corruption, this will obstruct foreign aid because donor countries do not give their money so it may be stolen.”

Secrecy

So how is Judge Ukayli choosing to deal with this terrible problem? He ordered his commission to make its work secret. He will not make public any information about corruption cases until “a court of law makes a final decision in the case.”

That means no one will ever hear anything about Iraq’s corruption scandals. Few if any ever go to court.

A few weeks ago, the Maliki government issued a blanket pardon for 1,023 government officials under investigation for corruption — every government official under investigation through last October.

X Joel Brinkley is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University. McClatchy-Tribune.