IRAQ: Endemic bribery, graft and conflicts of interest will await the new Iraqi leader everywhere in his fight against corruption, writes Solomon Moore, in Baghdad
Each day hundreds of visitors fly into this war-ravaged capital aboard state-owned Iraqi Airways planes that transportation ministry officials claim were purchased for $3 million apiece. Anti-corruption officials claim they should not have cost a cent over $600,000 and wonder where the rest of the money went.
Inside the terminal, customs officials routinely hassle disembarking passengers for a "customs fee". The price is often negotiable. Outside, passengers can find a ride with a waiting taxi, many of them fuelled with smuggled petrol.
Beyond the airport, city streets teem with cars. A good portion of them, 17,000 according to anti-corruption officials, were stolen from the government since the 2003 invasion.
Corruption is among the most critical problems facing Iraq's newly formed government, US and Iraqi officials say. Moments after announcing most of his new cabinet on Saturday, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that fighting corruption would be one of his main priorities. US and Iraqi officials say endemic bribery, graft and conflicts of interest will await Mr al-Maliki everywhere he turns.
Iraqi government documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times reveal the breadth of corrupt crimes, from epic schemes involving hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts down to the more ordinary, including the hundreds of university students accused of buying better grades from their lecturers and the former justice ministry official who handed out US-issue pistols to friends as party favours. "We are seeing corruption everywhere in Iraq - in every ministry, in every governorate," said Radhi Hamza Radhi, head of the Commission on Public Integrity, Iraq's anti-corruption agency.
A bald, elderly former judge who was disbarred, jailed and tortured under Saddam Hussein's regime, Mr Radhi's face bears scars from acid burns during his brutal imprisonment; his eyes, damaged by lack of light during his captivity, squint from behind Coke-bottle glasses.
"We are revealing the country's secrets," he said, perusing the thick binders of case files that line the walls of two commission offices.
Defence ministry officials spent $1 billion on questionable arms purchases, Mr Radhi said. The interior ministry currently pays for at least 1,100 ghost employees, he added, at a cost of $1.3 million a month.
Corruption in Iraq is not new. Yet many experts believe that the situation has become dramatically worse since the invasion in 2003. "Corruption thrives in a context of confusion and change," Transparency International, a non-governmental watchdog group, said in a report last year.
Corruption helps fuel the insurgency, as well, said Mr Radhi. "The terrorists help the criminals and the criminals help the terrorists," he said. "Without corruption, we would have been able to defeat the terrorists by now."
Since 2003, hundreds of police officers and soldiers have abandoned their posts and many of them took their weapons with them, US officials say. Many of those weapons, along with millions of dollars worth of arms that are now unaccounted for, have probably ended up in insurgent hands, according to US military sources and Iraqi anti-corruption officials.
In a particularly egregious case, former parliament member Mishan Jabouri was implicated earlier this year in a ploy where pipeline sentries conspired with insurgents to hijack oil convoys and spirit them out of Iraq.
A less dramatic but more pervasive pattern is the growing black market in unregistered and smuggled cars, which US and Iraqi military officials believe play a part in the steady stream of car-bomb attacks.
Just as damaging is the way that corruption has siphoned away resources that could have been used for reconstruction and security.
Altogether, unaccountable weapons and equipment could total more than $500 million, US military officials acknowledged earlier this year.
Located in offices within Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the Commission on Public Integrity is the nation's premier watchdog agency. But of the approximately 3,000 corruption cases investigated by the commission, only about 780 have been registered with the nation's courts, and only about a dozen have reached a final verdict.
Of 40 cases involving Iraq's highest-ranking government officials, including ministers and ministry director generals, the courts have issued a verdict against only one individual - an interior ministry official accused of stealing police property and payroll funds. As of last month, the police had failed to execute a single arrest warrant.
To some extent, courts have been reluctant to take on corruption cases because they are so overloaded with terrorism cases. But intimidation is also a major factor. More than 20 judges have been killed since 2003. Earlier this month, gunmen assassinated the son of Midhat Mahmoud, head judge in the Iraqi Supreme Judiciary Council.
Inspector generals, who are supposed to refer cases to the commission, have also been subject to threats and in several cases have been fired for investigating claims of criminal behaviour.
Many ordinary Iraqis say they cannot imagine their society without a certain level of corruption. Iraqis pay off officials to lower phone bills and to expedite paperwork, to move to the head of the payroll line and to free imprisoned relatives from jails.