Corrupt often go free in Iraq

An Iraqi amnesty law has undermined efforts to prosecute Iraqi government officials for corruption that has cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars, U.S. and former Iraqi officials say. Iraq's parliament enacted the amnesty law in February, eliminating the charges, convictions or investigations of all Iraqis except those who committed certain serious crimes such as murder or terrorism. The law was an effort to help bring reconciliation to the feuding religious, ethnic and political factions within Iraq. As a result, 690 corruption cases handled by Iraq's Commission on Integrity have been dismissed, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen says. "The decision to forgive this many people for corruption in the last three or four years, that's unacceptable," says Abbas Medhi, a Minnesota college professor who served in 2006 and 2007 as a top adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and as head of Iraq's National Investment Commission. "People who stole the money should be accountable." About $18 billion–more than half of it U.S. money–has been lost to government corruption and waste since 2003, Salam Adhoob, the commission's former chief investigator, told a congressional hearing in September. Al-Maliki spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment. The United States has little recourse when U.S. funds are misused by Iraqi officials, since Iraq's courts handle those corruption cases, says Kristine Belisle, spokeswoman for the inspector general's office. Bowen's office coordinates investigations with Iraq's anti-corruption agencies, Belisle said in an e-mail. No Iraqi officials have been charged with corruption by U.S. authorities. In addition to the amnesty law, a pre-invasion statute allowing Cabinet ministers to block investigations at their ministries have hobbled anti-corruption efforts in Iraq, Bowen says. Iraq's Commission on Integrity also suffers from chronic funding shortfalls, intimidation by political factions and the forced removal of its previous director, Radhi al-Radhi, who fled to the USA last year, Bowen says. "They haven't been able to accomplish too much over the past year because of that weak capacity, and the amnesty law reduces the scope of their possible achievement," Bowen said in a telephone interview from Baghdad.