Ex-officials: Bush admin. ignored Iraq corruption
How bad is it?
NPR-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 on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.
Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers’ workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “evisceration” of Iraq’s top anti-corruption office, he said.
The State Department’s policies “not only contradicted the anti-corruption 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 amount of corruption that the neo-cons have covered up under the guise of “national security” would boggle the mind. And many of the “see no evil” folks would just as soon leave that stone unturned. Just keep in mind “national” to these folks usually means “multinational corporation”. Hey at least Reagan talked a good talk and many say gave a sincere effort to scale back the BS. Here’s one of my favorite Regan quotes to the Grace Commission:
“…work like tireless bloodhounds to root out government inefficiency and waste of tax dollars.”
I agree