(As in Marc, the infamous international commodities trader who fled the U.S. Rich, involved in the oil for food scandal. Getting back to the point - Clinton - Mica asks al-Radhi if he’s familiar with a man named Mr. “Now let me be fair: Forty government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate,” he says, noting as an aside that 31 Reagan administration officials were convicted, too. The list goes on and on.”īut Mica wants to be clear he’s not singling out Clinton. The first president to be sued for sexual harassment. The most number of witnesses to flee the country to refuse to testify. The most number of Cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation. ![]() The most number of convictions and pleas-guilty by friends and associates. “The only president ever impeached on the grounds of personal malfeasance. “I’ve got sort of the record from the Clinton administration,” he says. John Mica (R-Fla.) tells al-Radhi, you should have seen the Clinton administration. Another 80-year-old parent of an employee, he offers, had his body drilled full of holes.Īl-Radhi estimates that $18 billion has been lost to corruption in the last three years, and that’s in a country with a budget of only about $40 billion. His father was recently kidnapped and killed because of his son’s work at His body was found hung from a meat hook,” he says. “In one case of targeted death and torture, the security chief on my staff was repeatedly threatened with death. He gives his opening statement in English, a language he clearly hasn’t mastered, so that the committee can hear directly from him, he says. That sort of provision is incompatible with a growing democracy,” he says.Īl-Radhi, a Hussein torture-victim, describes the difficulty of battling corruption in Iraq. And also that same provision protects any member of the military and any member of the police force. permits any minister to exempt any employee accused of corruption from prosecution for that crime. “Article 136(b) of the Iraqi Criminal Code. Iraq still has laws, he notes, but not the right kind. Bowen calls corruption the “second insurgency” and quotes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dubbing corruption the “second war in Iraq.”īowen says an Iraqi politician recently said that, yes, Iraq “had corruption under the regime of Saddam Hussein, but we also had law.” The corruption fuels the insurgency and funds sectarian militias, they report. Walker and Bowen both give a rundown of the state of Iraqi corruption, and it’s hard not to conclude, from their testimony, that Iraq is really, really corrupt. Corruption is a longstanding and deeply ingrained problem,” he says, specifically blaming Saddam Hussein and oil-for-food program corruption. “We can’t afford to be naïve or wear cultural blinders. “The small-d democrats in Iraq don’t need to be lectured by this committee,” he says, adding that the “unmistakable subtext” of the hearing is “the premise that a corrupt Iraqi government doesn’t warrant further American sacrifice.”ĭavis has a premise, too: that Iraqi corruption is not America’s fault. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the ranking minority member, questioning the need for a hearing at all. The party lines, despite Waxman’s hopes, are drawn early, with Rep. “Sometimes this committee breaks down along party lines during hearings. But we need to ask: Is the Maliki government too corrupt to succeed?” he wonders. “The Maliki government is our ally in Iraq. ![]() Waxman concludes his opening statement on a hopeful, bipartisan note. Waxman and other Democrats have signed a letter recommending him for asylum. for forensics and evidence training and hasn’t returned to Iraq. “Thirty-one of Judge Radhi’s employees and 12 of their family members have been assassinated.” Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chair. “Judge Radhi is under attack by the Maliki government, and he and his family are the targets of serious and persistent death threats,” says Rep. and head of the Government Accountability Office Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction and Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, formerly head of the Public Integrity Commission in Iraq.Īl-Radhi may be putting his life in jeopardy by appearing here today. Making her point forcefully, the woman, wearing a bright orange suit coat and a black bow in her hair, stands and moves to the center of the front row, directly behind today’s three witnesses: David Walker, the comptroller general of the U.S. “My family is there,” she explains in English to a reporter seated behind her. The men point to a camera against the wall, explaining that it will capture her image and make public her participation in Thursday’s House Government Reform Committee hearing, “Assessing the State of Iraqi Corruption.”
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