Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiThe 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.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, head of the Democratic Policy Committee, said the testimony was critical in light of upcoming legislation that would appropriate more than $170 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate Appropriations Committee, of which Dorgan is a member, is expected to approve the legislation Thursday.
"It is a cruel irony if we are appropriating money next Thursday or did appropriate money last month or last year and that money ends up actually providing the resources for an insurgency in Iraq which ends up killing Americans," said Dorgan, D-N.D.
© 2008 Associated Press
26 Comments so far
Show AllBush ignores America's corruption too!
http://www.nraila.org/Multimedia/MMPlayer_Set.aspx?ID=105
To peacepoet, are you a Vet/concerned citizen/both(?), I'm a Viet Vet working at the Iowa Cith VAMC since 1979, around 2000 I heard that certain administrators were giving themselves retention bonuses, which can be 25% of salary. To try and shorten this, in 1998 the VA paid 68,000 in department wide Retention Allowances, in 99 it went up to 160,000 with around 95 of that coming to Iowa City, back to Department wide - in 2000 it jumped to 2 plus million, 2001 went up to 6.5 million, basically doubling every year until the last figure I asked for in 2005, which was over 42 million, added up it's 170 plus million from 2000 thru 2005 JUST for RETENTION ALLOWANCES! No one is leaving the VA especially the DAMN ADMINISTRATORS. They're stealing this money under the guise that they "COULD" go any where and get a job. We had one Administrator receive over 40,000 extra his last year working here, it was a going away present. The year before that he received over 30,000. To get these figures you have to know EXACTLY what to ask for and HOW to ask for it. I can provide more insight and figures to anyone willing to help stop this theivery, just provide a phone#. I don't think an Email would be appropriate at this site. Peacepoet thanks for asking.
Thanks willybill for the link to Genral Strike.
Lots of groovy links in the Coffee house section like Alan Watts mp3 http://www.alanwatts.com/ra/Bigger_Wiggle.ra
http://www.alanwatts.com/media.php
How come the fascist bastards have gotten away with everything -- including the theft of $2.3 TRILLION from the Pentagon budget? It's been "missing" for years, and no one does anything about it.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1047.shtml
The Pentagon's own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.
We may have difficulty exporting freedom and democracy, but we do a heckuva job with corruption, secrecy and cronyism.
Thoughts_Into_Action
Israel is our 52nd state, Puerto Rico the 51st, Iraq will have to settle for 3rd place.
This stupid article presumes that Iraq is the 51st state.
The real whopper is that the Bushies would be reformers against corruption, or anything else.
How long do we have to endure this bullshit?
Office of Accountability and Transparency is an oxymoron.
What accountability? We are talking about an illegal and criminal occupation of a country where atrocities are committed every day since the occupation began.
Is there any accountability for that?
The Bush family and friends are bankrupting this nation just like he bankrupted his companies in Texas. America has become a slush fund for American corporations raping of the nations national treasury. Bush does not want the war to end. He is sabotizing his own war to force the American occupation of Iraq. His father had failed in the first Gulf War because Saddam Hussien surrenderd to prevent the occupation of Iraq to pin down the coalition from going all the way into Iraq. This family are the merchants of death who have used the CIA inside the oil companies to provoke Iraq to war. Prescott Bush work with Gulf Oil's CIA Kermit Roosevelt to fabricate the long term privatization of the middle east naturally or by force and deception. The overthrow of Iraq was written into America's cold war policy in the 1940's by Prescott Bush and friends. Bush is using corruption to fabricate support for America occupation in Iraq. He does not care about the cost of the war. He is making his fortune off his war just like his grandfather did with the Nazi's.
willybill May 13th, 2008 5:45 pm
I'm in.
This is the absolute LEAST anyone in this country owes the planet.
Remember the $8 or $9 Billion in CASH that was sent to Iraq and was never accounted for? If I'm not mistaken, Paul Bremer was in charge at the time. I wonder how much of it is sitting in Swiss bank accounts?
Corruption is here, there and everywhere!
Still more to bitch and gripe about and have nobody do anything about.
No, folks, I don't condone it, any of it. A substantial number of voters turned out in 2006 resulting in the Democrats taking "control" of both houses of Congress.
An awful lot of people thought they were going to get us out of Iraq. Now, almost two years later, we're still there only we've got a higher casualty rate and we've pissed away I don't know how many more billion dollars.
You've got to hand it to them though; we now know what non-binding resolutions are cause they came up with more than their share. Political analysts said right from the "get go" that the only thing that really gave them control was that which had to do with the "purse strings".
They were afraid to cut off funding for fear that they'd be criticized for not supporting the troops. BS! Every move that the Democrats in Congress have made since taking "control" has been carefully measured in such a way that it should not reflect poorly on the candidate of their party in the 2008 Presidential election.
Whoever gets in come November, whether it be Obama, Clinton or McCain will then be guided, not by what is right and best for the American people, but rather how it will reflect on members of their party who will be seeking re-election in 2010 Congressional elections.
Is it getting to sound like a circle with no beginning and no end? Well, get used to it, it's all in the game we call politics. It's really nothing new; it's possibly become more apparent because you've got more lives at stake, more of our treasury at stake and all coupled with an economy that is going down the toilet while our priorites are directed halfway 'round the world.
I thank you putting up with this very tired old man.
Swaheal..I'd like to hear more about what you have referenced. Peace.
"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."
Like the Mafia in New York ignoring the Mafia in Chicago. Well, they didn't really ignore each other, they competed for business.
Gee, that kinda sounds like what's happening here...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_chris_ri_080513_bring_bush_to_ju...
This all could have been avoided. The impeachment was "off the table". Now Pelosi ought to be "off the table". She and her husband had to be part of it.
The best government money can buy.
I can't believe how long it's taken them to see the obvious!
I'm afraid that corruption by the Iraqi government may be one of their lesser crimes. There's probably a lot of torture going on that we don't know about because the US military refuses to inspect prisons.
Corruption? Don't look. Torture? Don't listen. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And lo! Evil is eliminated!
"Soft" money means it can stick to American politicans and not leave much of a stain. How many of the congress own stock in companies that build and sell weaponry? How many of these weapons are pointed at our children? How many get pointed at the politicians?
The Bush administration has done just about everything wrong under the sun.
WHEN are they going to be held accountable for their many wrong doings?? All the Congressional Democrats do is complain about it, but do they ever do anything to correct the situation? Nope. Lots of talk but no action.
Please, someone, explain to me why the US government has any credibility relative to corruption in the Iraqi government given the outrageous waste, fraud, and abuse to the US taxpayers committed by KBR et al. What hypocricy!
It is appropriate that the article ends with a comment by Byron Dorgan. Dorgan and the other Dems have absolutely no intention whatsoever of actually doing something about this besides occasional public whining. The article ends there and so will this issue. It'll be gone in less than a day; just in time for the next Bush Regime assault on whatever is left of everything we care about...
of course they ignored it....They were all part of the corruption.
Article 1 section 9 of our "Late Great" Constitution states that all monies taken out of the treasury needs ot be periodically published. I've used that to find out what the VA has been being allowed give out as what I call "bonuses". Iowa City gave out over 7.4 million in extra "bonuses" in 2007. I've even had the IG prove to Senator Grassley and others (Bush) that money was being stolen (FRAUD) but none of them did anything to stop it. What I uncovered, since 2000, adds up to over 200 million needlessly being taken away from the taxpayers in Retention Allowances alone. So much for our Conservatives in government, the IG's, and the media I have contacted.
When it comes to funding what remains of government benefit programs, e.g. extending unemployment benefits, Congress puts on its green eyeshade and quibbles over the minimally adequate funding. God forbid that the proletariat be encouraged to survive without wage slavery for one week longer than absolutely necessary.
But when it comes to funding our imperialist, illegal, and amoral adventures overseas, money is no object. We've all heard about the millions in cash transported to Iraq during Viceroy Bremer's stewardship. It's a foregone conclusion that Iraq was, and is, a snakepit of fraud, avarice, greed, and theft.
Medals of Freedom and Sternly-Worded Letters all around!