Ex-State officials allege corruption in Iraq

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government," Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy "effort against corruption — including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency — was little more than 'window dressing,'" he added.

Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the administration takes the issue of corruption seriously and pointed to its recent appointment of Lawrence Benedict as coordinator for anti-corruption initiatives at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Benedict's appointment "is another demonstration that we are working at very senior levels to help the Iraqis deal with this issue," Casey said. "Any assertion that we have not taken this issue seriously or given it the attention it deserves is simply untrue."

The Office of Accountability and Transparency, or "OAT" team, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq's anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki's office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.

The draft report sparked hearings in Congress and prompted a showdown between Democrats and senior State Department officials on whether the public has a right to know the extent to which al-Maliki was involved in corruption cases.

Brennan charges the State Department never responded to his team's report, which was retroactively classified because agency officials said it could hurt bilateral relations with Iraq. Other recommendations by the group also were kept secret, including a negative assessment of Iraq's Joint Anti-Corruption Committee, Brennan said.

In July 2007, the OAT team concluded that the committee's only purpose was to provide a forum for complaints against Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, a top anti-corruption official in Baghdad whom many U.S. officials have hailed as the most effective in exposing fraud and abuse.

But information later released by the embassy ignored the team's assessment and ultimately "failed to even mention what a disaster" the committee "really was," Brennan said.

Brennan said he approved the embassy report against his better judgment but later regretted it.

Mattil, who worked with Brennan, made similar allegations. Specifically, he said the U.S. "remained silent in the face of an unrelenting campaign" by senior Iraqi officials to subvert Baghdad's Commission on Public Integrity, which had been led by al-Radhi. Then, the U.S. turned its back on Iraqis who fled to the United States after being threatened for pursuing anti-corruption cases, he said.

"Since we have done so little (to undercut corruption), it's easy to see why the government of Iraq has not done more," said Mattil, who left the accountability office last October after having served for a year as its chief of staff. "We have demanded no better."

Brennan was appointed as OAT director last summer and arrived in Baghdad in July. He left only a few weeks later after his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He stepped down from his position in August.

Iraqi government officials could not be reached for comment.
...
LINK TO REST OF THE ARTICLE

related to this....

Former State Dept. Official: Amb. Crocker Is Either ‘Negligent’ Or ‘Intentionally Misleading’
Think Progress

Today, the Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq and corruption in the Iraqi government. Two former State Department employees testified, including Judge Arthur Brennan, the former director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) in Iraq. He said that his office’s work “was ignored and demeaned by the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the government of Iraq.”

He also revealed the State Department completely altered a report he sent to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) that criticized an Iraqi watchdog agency as being a “disaster”:

MCCASKILL: And your testimony — I want to make sure that you have said the Department of State has negligently, recklessly and intentionally misled Congress, the American people and the people of Iraq. And you stand by that testimony, Judge?

BRENNAN: I stand by that testimony.

MCCASKILL: And so, what we’re learning today is that SIGIR, the information we’re getting from SIGIR is not, in fact, always factual, that sometimes it is being spun by Ambassador Crocker and that it is your testimony today that Ambassador Crocker knows the level of corruption in the Iraqi government and has failed to be honest with the American people about it.

BRENNAN: If he doesn’t know, then he’s negligent. If he does know, then he’s intentionally misleading Congress and the American public.
(video at link)

Good thing congress is preparing to keep bankrolling this venture through summer 2009.





"Here's the check, just fill in whatever amount you need."

Yes, because all of this is so very simple, and the Dem's have more than enough votes to change or kill the bill, and to override a veto of whatever they do pass, right?

I don't know, let's check with Jack Murtha:

I mentioned this in another topic....

there's a couple of other things playing out in the background, behind the war bill.
for one thing, they're pushing this bill thru so they're not faced with fighting with republicans over another war funding bill in the fall... just before the elections.

U.S.-Backed Head Of Iraqi Anti-Corruption Agency Now A ‘Destitute’ Undocumented Immigrant In U.S.
Think Progress

After the 2003 Iraq invasion, Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer created a major anti-corruption ministry in Iraq, the Public Integrity Commission (CPI). Last October, former CPI commissioner Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who was appointed by Bremer and whose work has been praised by top U.S. officials, told Congress about the “rampant” corruption in Iraqi ministries that had cost Iraq as much as $18 billion.

Radhi’s gripping account detailed how Prime Minister Maliki tried to subvert his commission and how nearly four dozen of his staff members were killed. Subsequently, he was forced to seek asylum in the United States.

But today, Radhi is living as an undocumented immigrant in Virginia. In a Democratic Policy Committee hearing yesterday, former State Department official James Mattil told Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) that Radhi has no “official status” in the U.S. Currently, only a group of Quakers and Arthur Brennan, the former head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency, are funding Radhi, he said:

DORGAN: And where is Judge al-Radhi at the moment?

MATTIL: Living in an apartment in Springfield, maybe for the rest of the month if they can get it worked out that somebody is going to pay for it. But he’s not allowed to work. He has no official status, so he’s not — he’s undocumented — I don’t know what he is. I mean, he’s lost. He’s a person without a country.
(snip)

These clowns should be put in jail and hounded to poverty.

not yet...

we still haven't heard anybody from the State Dept. testilie yet.
There's some serious 'splaining to do, its something I'm looking forward to.

Maybe so.

But I submit that this is a reasonable longterm strategy.

oh sure, no doubt.