H13784
Headlines : IraqIraqi anti-corruption official says $8 billion vanished
Radi al-Radhi has the unenviable task of heading the Iraqi Public Integrity Commission, a position which has led him to suffer death threats along with the more mundane frustrations of constantly being stonewalled by the Iraqi government and its underlings.
In his opinion, in the past three years some $8 billion has vanished from Iraqi coffers, money that could have been spent on schools and hospitals but is now residing in far away bank accounts. If the case of “former Electricity minister Ayham al-Samaraie” is anything to go by, such crimes are also protected by the U.S. government.
[Posted By Szamko]Republished from Associated Press via the Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Iraq’s top corruption fighter said Wednesday that $8 billion in government money was wasted or stolen over the past three years and claimed he was threatened with death after opening an investigation into scores of Oil Ministry employees.
In the chaos and lawlessness of Iraq, such threats are not taken lightly. Radi al-Radhi, who runs the Public Integrity Commission, leads one of the more dangerous missions in the country. He said in an interview with the Associated Press that 20 members of the organization have been murdered since it began its work.
In perhaps the most publicized recent case, an estimated $2 billion disappeared from funds to rebuild the electricity infrastructure.
Former Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samaraie, who holds both U.S. and Iraqi citizenship, was convicted in that case and sentenced to two years in prison. He escaped from an Iraqi-run jail in the Green Zone on Dec. 17 and turned up in Chicago on Jan. 15. Al-Samaraie has said the Americans helped him escape.
Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.
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And Bush can’t dig out $20 million for Walter Reid.
Nice find, Shazam. Tanks. Particularly interesting is that bit about Sadr. I think the public discourse, anywhere you look, is in deep denial about the level of corruption in any given system, much less a war zone in full swing. The real find in this piece is The Honest Man.
On that note :
Lucy Komisar strikes again — with what appears to be just the first page or so of the entry she contributed to the newly release A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption
Our man Perkins wrote the Intro. It’s all about the new and improved EHM.
My first I Love Lucy was Corporate Profits Take an Offshore Vacation. If you’re only going to read one Lucy, that’s the one to read.