Senate Is Told Iraq Corruption Ignored

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
May 13, 2008 By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - 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.
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 yesterday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.
Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional staffer visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, the staffers were watching movies at the embassy. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anticorruption office, he said.
The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anticorruption 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 took the issue of corruption seriously, noting the appointment of Lawrence Benedict as coordinator for anticorruption initiatives at the U.S. Embassy.
The Office of Accountability and Transparency was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq's anticorruption agencies. It was dismantled in December, after it alleged in a draft report that Maliki's office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.
Brennan said the State Department did not respond 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, Brennan said.
Mattil, who worked with Brennan, said the United States "remained silent in the face of an unrelenting campaign" by senior Iraqi officials to subvert Baghdad's Commission on Public Integrity.
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D., N.D.) said the testimony was critical in light of 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.
 
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