By SAM DAGHER
Published: May 5, 2009
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s main anticorruption watchdog has no shortage of cases, as its new report makes clear: embezzlement of $80 million; tampering with government tea imports; the theft of 50 Italian-made Beretta pistols; procuring forged Ph.D.’s; and scores of other crimes.
The real problem is the difficulty of prosecuting people for corruption, which is so widespread that it has become one of the main obstacles to stability and progress in Iraq, according to Iraqi and American officials. Among the barriers, the officials say, are laws that give ministers the right to pardon offenders, as well as partisan and sectarian interference, pressure, infighting, vendettas, blackmail and death threats.
“The reason for the massive corruption in Iraq is the belief by the corrupt that they are shielded from prosecution by the protection afforded to them by their political parties and sects,” said Rahim al-Okaili, the commissioner of the anticorruption group, the Commission on Public Integrity.
Iraq’s culture of impunity on corruption was illustrated last week when commission officials, accompanied by Iraqi soldiers, went to the Trade Ministry — itself far from the most-accused ministry on the commission’s list — to arrest nine people, including two of the minister’s brothers. They were implicated in large-scale embezzlement and fraud related to the ministry’s $5.3 billion public ration program.
A firefight erupted between the ministry’s guards, led by one of the minister’s brothers, and the force sent to make the arrests. That unit retreated after arresting only one of the people who were wanted, the minister’s spokesman.
The trade minister, Falah al-Sudani, belongs to a wing of the Shiite Dawa Party of the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The ministry issued statements saying the charges were baseless and stemmed from tips by disgruntled former employees, who had been fired because they were corrupt.
The Trade Ministry controls some valuable commodities in Iraq, operates the program to provide monthly rations for all Iraqis and supervises the importing of cars. It also oversees the importing of grain, seeds and construction materials.
There were 99 corruption cases initiated last year against employees of the Trade Ministry, according to a copy of the Integrity Commission’s report that was provided to The New York Times in advance of its official release next week. That put the Trade Ministry 10th among government ministries and institutions.
Coming in first, with 736 cases, was the Interior Ministry, followed by the Municipalities and Public Works Ministry, with 400 cases, and the Justice Ministry, with 249.
Last year the commission received 5,031 complaints, of which 3,027 were referred to the courts, resulting in 97 convictions.
Some of the cases ending in conviction, as listed in the report, provide insight into the range and depth of corruption in Iraqi government institutions.
The Interior Ministry cases include stealing weapons, ammunition and vehicles, and forging passports and identification cards.
Eight members of provincial councils, including four chairmen, were sentenced to two-year prison terms in connection with fraud in public works.
There were also 317 candidates running in January’s provincial elections who presented false credentials and degrees.
An unidentified official in the Defense Ministry was sentenced in absentia to a 10-year prison term for embezzling $80 million.
Perhaps more telling were the cases dismissed in the past few years as a result of a government amnesty and a law dating to 1971 that allows ministers to grant immunity to subordinates accused of corruption. The United States is pressing the Iraqi government to repeal that law.
Last year, 1,552 corruption cases involving 2,772 officials were dismissed as a result of the amnesty. Seven of the 1,552 involved corruption worth almost $50 million at the Electricity Ministry.
Since 2005, corruption charges have been brought against five ministers, who either were acquitted or fled the country.
The commission itself, which was created in January 2004 by the American-led occupation authority, has not escaped scrutiny.
Commissioner Okaili bemoans that his own institution is riddled with corruption and cronyism. He said dozens of employees had been dismissed for falsifying their university credentials and acquiring personal vehicles and unlicensed weapons with internal funds.
Separately, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador, Hassan Kazimi Qomi, to protest a series of airstrikes Iran had made over two days on villages in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The ministry said in a statement that the strikes had caused significant material damage and wounded several villagers. The statement called for an immediate halt to the strikes.
A security official in Iraqi Kurdistan said that the strikes were aimed at Iranian Kurdish guerrillas from the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan, or P.J.A.K., operating on the Iraqi side and that they were in retaliation for an ambush against Iranian government forces.
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Iraqi Kurdistan.
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