Sunday, May 31, 2009
Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — It has been a corruption scandal worthy of its name, complete with a shootout and a sexy video showing officials cavorting with scantily clad women. On Saturday, it all came to a fittingly dramatic conclusion when the man at the center of the saga tried to flee the country, and Iraqi authorities ordered his plane to turn back midflight.
When the plane landed at Baghdad’s airport, Abdul Falah Sudani, the country’s trade minister until he was forced to resign last week, promptly was arrested.
Sudani is charged with procuring substandard foodstuffs for Iraq’s food-ration program, but the allegations against his ministry go beyond that. Omar Abdul Sattar, a member of the Iraqi Parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said the sums stolen could amount to “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The arrest comes as part of an intensified effort to crack down on graft.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called for a war on corruption to equal the one on terrorism, and billboards have been posted across Baghdad proclaiming that “corruption is the breeding ground for terrorism” in blood-dripping letters.
Sudani is the highest-ranking former government official to be formally charged with corruption since 2006, when a former electricity minister was accused of overseeing more than $1 billion worth of improperly awarded contracts. The ex-minister escaped from his Green Zone jail cell in 2006 and resurfaced in Chicago.
Allegations of corruption swirl around virtually every Iraqi ministry and government department, with Iraqis expected to pay bribes for just about every government service, from pensions to the issuance of their national identity documents. Last year, the international watchdog group Transparency International ranked Iraq the second-most-corrupt country, behind Somalia.
Iraq’s Integrity Commission, a government agency charged with investigating graft, said last week that it was planning to issue arrest warrants for 997 officials from various government offices, in addition to 387 warrants already served.
The Trade Ministry always has been particularly notorious when it comes to corruption because of its role in procuring the food rations that still are distributed widely. Most Iraqis are familiar with the lumpy sugar, expired flour and reduced quantities that they receive in their monthly rations.