Something tells me that this is going to be a challenge for the next Administration.
The New York Times is reporting:
The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing Iraqi oversight officials, who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.
The dismissals, which were confirmed by senior Iraqi and American government officials on Sunday and Monday, have come as estimates of official Iraqi corruption have soared. One Iraqi former chief investigator recently testified before Congress that $13 billion in reconstruction funds from the United States had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste by Iraqi government officials.
The moves have not been publicly announced by Mr. Maliki’s government, but word of them has begun to circulate through the layers of Iraqi bureaucracy as Parliament prepares to vote on a long-awaited security agreement.
That pact sets the terms for continued American presence here after the United Nations mandate expires Dec. 31, but also amounts to a framework for a steady reduction in that presence. Such a change will undoubtedly lessen American oversight of Iraqi institutions.
While some Iraqi officials defended the dismissals, saying there had been no political motivation, others pointed to the secrecy involved as supporting their view that those removed had lost their posts without good cause. Each of Iraq’s 30 cabinet-level ministries has one inspector general. These oversight officials are supported by varying budgets and staffing. – Read the Rest
As much as I would like to say that this is the first I have heard of this, it is not. CNN did an investigative piece on the corruption in Iraq a good long while back.
As a Paleo-Conservative, who felt that going into Iraq was not a very smart idea, and as someone who now is aware that the intelligence that United States had as a case to go into Iraq was in fact flawed; I believe that the smartest thing that the United States can do as this point is, leave well enough alone. Because at this point, intervening in a situation such as this, can could cause more harm that good. It would be viewed by the Iraqi Government and to the people of Iraq, as the United States meddling in the affairs of the Iraqi Government. Let the Iraqi Government handle their own internal affairs.
Because honestly, it would reek of hypocrisy, if we began to meddle in the affairs of their internal Government, after all, we have corruption in our Government and you do not see Great Britain meddling in our affairs, do you? Of course not; So the United States should do likewise. One of the worst mistakes and utter missteps that this Nation ever made, was when we started becoming the Policeman of the World. This happened in World War I, which led to the actions that caused Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, which lead to World War 2. This happened in Korea, and in Vietnam. It happened in the first gulf war and now in the second Iraq War. My question to my readers is this, when will the United States finally wake up and realize that they need to stop trying to not only rule their own country, but others as well. Until that happens, we will continue to have wars, that have no legal merit.
It is truly a sad commentary on the United States, but it is a true one, unless of course, you are some sort of Pro-War Neo-Conservative shill.