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On Thursday, former Judge Radhi al-Radhi, Iraq's top
anticorruption official until he was recently forced out by the
government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, appeared before the
House government oversight committee and described what had become
of people who had worked for him at the Commission on Public
Integrity as they investigated crime and fraud within the Iraqi
government:
Thirty-one employees have been killed as well as at least
twelve family members. In a number of cases, my staff and their
relatives have been kidnapped or detained and tortured prior to
being killed. Many of these people were gunned down at close range.
This includes my staff member Mohammed Abd Salif, who was gunned
down with his seven-month pregnant wife. In one case of targeted
death and torture, the security chief on my staff was threatened
with death many times. His father was recently kidnapped and killed
because of his son's work at CPI. His body hung on a meat hook. One
of my staff members who performed clerical duties was protected by
my security staff, but his 80-year-old father was kidnapped because
his son worked at CPI. When his dead body was found, a power drill
had been used to drill his body with holes. Waleed Kashmoula was the
head of CPI's Mosul branch. In March 2005, a suicide bomber met with
Waleed in his office...and then set off his vest [bomb], killing
Waleed....My family's home has been attacked by rockets. I have had
a sniper bullet striking near me as I was outside my office. We have
learned the hard way that the corrupt will stop at nothing.
Minutes later, Republicans members of the committee were
suggesting there was nothing unusual or shocking about corruption in
Iraq. "Corruption is not a new phenomenon," remarked Representative
Tom Davis, the senior GOPer on the panel. Another committee
Republican, Representative Darrell Issa, huffed, "We're not
surprised a country that was run by a corrupt dictator...would have
a pattern of corruption." And Republican Representative John Mica
noted that corruption plagues many democratic countries, including
the United States. Mica cited Watergate and the prosecution of
Reagan administration officials, and he claimed that the Clinton
administration had "the most number of witnesses to die suddenly."
Their spin: corruption in Iraq is no big deal.
But Radhi in his testimony reiterated what he said in an interview
with me several weeks ago: corruption is "rampant" within Iraq
(perverting virtually every ministry and costing tens of billions of
dollars); it's undermining the entire government and has "stopped
the process of reconstruction"; Maliki has consistently blocked
corruption investigations (especially probes involving his
associates and family); in some instances corruption is "financing
terrorism" by funding sectarian militias; and the situation is
getting worse. Radhi noted that of the 3000 corruption cases his
commission investigated and forwarded to Iraqi courts for
prosecution, only 241 have been adjudicated. Also appearing as a
witness at the hearing, Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq
reconstruction, echoed Radhi, testifying that corruption within
the Iraqi government is the "second insurgency." Bowen reported that
corruption is on the rise in Iraq--partly due to Maliki's protection
of crooked officials. He quoted one Iraqi official who said that
"corruption is threatening the state."
That is, this is worse than Watergate. (And back then, no one
investigating Richard Nixon's dirty tricks ended up dead and
suspended on a meat hook.)
Radhi agreed with the Republicans that corruption was present
during the days of Saddam Hussein, but he pointed out that the
current corruption "is undermining my country." And he was not fazed
when the GOPers tried to discredit his testimony. Republican
Representative Dan Burton excitedly pointed out that Radhi had once
served as a prosecutor during the Saddam years. (Burton did not
mention that Radhi was twice imprisoned and tortured during the
Saddam years and still bears the scars.) And Issa suggested that
Radhi was appearing at the hearing (and offering testimony
inconvenient for the Bush administration) in return for receiving
backing from congressional Democrats for an asylum request Radhi
recently submitted to the U.S. government for himself and family
members.
Radhi came to the United States in August with ten of his CPI
investigators for training sessions set up by the Justice
Department. While he was in the Washington area, the Maliki
government forcibly removed him from his post, accusing him of
corruption and essentially stranding him with almost no source of
funds. As one of his associates said at the hearing, "If Maliki is
right and Judge Radhi stole millions of dollars, why did he have to
check out of his hotel here when he couldn't pay the bill?"
Christopher Griffith, a State Department official who worked with
Radhi, in a pre-hearing interview with the House committee called
Radhi "the most honest government of Iraq official that I have met
in my 21 months in the country." Arthur Brennan, a former State
Department official (and a past New Hampshire state judge) who
worked with Radhi in Iraq, has called him "courageous, honest, and
effective." Bowen dubbed him, "My most reliable partner....in Iraq."
The Republican attempt to taint Radhi was predictable. Radhi, who
has praised the U.S. invasion of Iraq, said he has no political
agenda. But his testimony raised a troubling question for the Bush
administration: should the United States expend American lives and
hundreds of billions of dollars to create "breathing space" for a
government that may be too corrupt to achieve political
reconciliation or provide essential services to its citizens? As
Representative Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the
committee, put it, "We need to ask, Is the Maliki government too
corrupt to succeed? And if the Maliki government is corrupt, we need
to ask whether we can in good conscience continue to sacrifice our
blood and tax dollars to prop up his regime."
In response to the Republicans' corruption-is-everywhere defense,
Radhi maintained that the "issue is different in Iraq....The
infrastructure in Iraq is almost equal to zero. Services in the
country is almost equal to zero." He noted that Iraq is a wealthy
nation and that its government recently had a budget of $71 billion.
Yet, he added, this money has not been used to rebuild and revive
the country. David Walker, the comptroller general and another
witness at the hearing, tried to spell out why corruption is a
significant matter: "When the United States has 160,000 troops on
the ground and billions of dollars invested...we ought to be
concerned [with corruption] because it can have a direct impact on
the Iraqi government's ability to achieve the 18 benchmarks
[established by Congress]."
The 62-year-old Radhi left the hearing room quickly after
testifying, taking no questions from reporters. Gerry Sikorski, one
of his attorneys and a former House member, said, "He took a very
risky step coming here"--implying that Radhi or his relatives might
face reprisals for his testimony. In a written statement handed out
by Sikorski, Radhi said that "real corruption...is destroying my
country. It is impossible to have both democracy and corruption at
the same time."
At the hearing, Waxman released a committee memorandum indicating
that the Bush administration has mounted no serious effort regarding
corruption within the Maliki government. After conducting interviews
with several State Department officials responsible for
anticorruption activity in Iraq, Waxman's committee concluded that
"dysfunction and disarray...appear to be frustrating U.S.
anticorruption efforts." Former Judge Brennan, who briefly headed
State Department's Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT),
told committee investigators there was no coordinated U.S. strategy
for combating corruption in Iraq. Michael Richards, the executive
secretary of the Anticorruption Working Group, an interagency task
force, said that his outfit did not have a coordinator for half a
year and that few officials bothered to attend its meetings. And
according to the committee memorandum, for a while this summer the
State Department's OAT was run by a paralegal who previously had
mainly performed administrative tasks within the department. In his
prepared testimony, Inspector General Bowen reported that the U.S.
embassy in Baghdad has been lackadaisical in its anticorruption
efforts.
Yet after Radhi, Bowen and Walker were finished at the witness
table, Ambassador Larry Butler, the deputy assistant secretary of
state for Near Eastern affairs, testified that the "Department of
State has devoted considerable effort and resources to helping
courageous Iraqi establish mechanisms and procedures to investigate
and prosecute corruption." Butler did not have an easy task. But he
stuck to his talking points, and--tougher still--he defended his
department's refusal to cooperate fully with Waxman's committee.
Prior to the hearing, Waxman asked
the State Department to provide witnesses and documents to his
investigators. The department responded by claiming that previously
unclassified documents about Iraqi government corruption were now
classified (including the U.S. embassy
draft report detailing extensive corruption within the Maliki
government that I first
disclosed in this column) and that any information provided by a
State Department officials about corruption in Iraq would have to be
classified (meaning it could not be discussed at a public hearing).
Writing to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Waxman contended
that this was absurd and outrageous. He argued it was ridiculous for
the State Department to claim it could not answer even general
questions about Iraqi corruption within a public setting. At the
hearing, Waxman hurled a series of queries at Butler. What effect
does corruption have on the Iraqi government's ability to achieve
political reconciliation? Has Maliki obstructed any corruption
investigations? Does the Maliki government have the political will
and capability to root out corruption? Is corruption funding the
insurgency? Again and again, Butler replied that he would be
delighted to answer these questions in the proper setting: a
classified hearing behind closed doors. This information, he
explained, was secret because its disclosure would "endanger"
U.S.-Iraqi relations.
Noting that Rice had previously praised Iraqi anticorruption
efforts in public, an upset Waxman declared, "If you say something
negative about the Maliki government, it's classified, but if it's
positive, then it's not." Representative Stephen Lynch, a Democrat
on the committee, angrily remarked, "Do you see the irony here?
You've established [for Iraq] a committee on accountability and
transparency. But here...you're claiming there is a level of
confidentiality...and we cannot tell the American people what we're
doing with their money." Butler would not be moved. He kept
declining to say anything about corruption in Iraq and its impact on
the U.S. efforts there. "Secretary Rice," Waxman warned, "is going
to have a confrontation with this committee....The executive branch
must answer the questions of the legislative branch."
Well, maybe. In the meantime, it's unclear what will become of
Radhi. He has several lawyers working pro bono on his immigration
status (and that of his family members). And with the Iraqi
government refusing to pay him the retirement benefits usually
awarded former government officials of his rank, he will have to
find a way to support himself in the United States (assuming he
stays here). Moreover, it's not certain what impact, if any, his
testimony will have on the ongoing debate in Congress concerning
George W. Bush's Iraq policy and the administration's latest funding
requests for the war. There were several reporters--but not many--at
the hearing.
During his testimony, Radhi said he does not favor a U.S.
withdrawal from Iraq. But he did say that the Iraqi government can
only function effectively if "professional technocrats...qualified
to perform vital government services" are placed in charge. And by
his own account, that is not happening. He estimates the Iraqi
government is meeting 2 to 5 percent of its obligations--with the
rest of its activity committed to waste and fraud.
So Radhi is, as Waxman noted, a man "without a country," and he's
also a man caught between his desire (a clean and functioning Iraqi
government backed by the United States) and his view of reality (a
corrupt Iraqi government that's a threat to him and his family and
that does not deserve the support of the United States). By design
or not, his testimony does undercut the Bush administration's
rationale for the so-called "surge--as would any public examination
of corruption within the Iraqi government. Which is why the State
Department is in fierce battle with Waxman and why this matter will
not end with Radhi's testimony.
According to a Radhi associate, Radhi left the committee room
believing he had done the right thing. Even as he was depending on
the U.S. government to process his asylum request, he had delivered
Congress a straight message that happened to be rather inconvenient
for the Bush administration. Then hours later, he received
disturbing news: his son, who had been trying to obtain political
asylum in England, was ordered by the British government to return
to Baghdad. That's where people connected to Radhi have been
kidnapped, tortured and killed. "For Judge Radhi," the Radhi
associate said, "this put his day on Capitol Hill in a very
different light." |
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