Ex-State officials allege corruption in Iraq

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 (OAT) last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on May 12 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 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 US embassy "effort against corruption–including its new centerpiece, the [OAT]–was little more than 'window dressing,'" he added. The OAT had alleged in a draft report that Maliki's office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies. Brennan charges the State Department never responded to the 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, including a negative assessment of Iraq's Joint Anti-Corruption Committee, Brennan said. Mattil said the US "remained silent in the face of an unrelenting campaign" by senior Iraqi officials to subvert Baghdad's Commission on Public Integrity. Then, the US turned its back on Iraqis who fled to the United States after being threatened for pursuing anti-corruption cases, he said. "Since we have done so little [to undercut corruption], it's easy to see why the government of Iraq has not done more," said Mattil, who left the accountability office last October after having served for a year as its chief of staff. "We have demanded no better."