Iraq chases many for corruption, catches few

Iraq issued hundreds of arrest warrants for officials suspected of corruption last year, but only a fraction were convicted, a government watchdog said in a new report. Some suspects fled while others were protected by powerful officials or by an amnesty law meant to foster reconciliation between Iraq's feuding Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, Iraq's Integrity Commission said in its most recent report, released this week but compiling data from 2008. Corruption is a major problem in Iraq, which watchdog group Transparency International placed fifth from the bottom in its 2009 ranking of perceptions about public corruption. "Corruption spread throughout Iraq in past decades, but the totalitarianism of the last regime hid this, and stopped its prevention. Since 2003, Iraq has dealt realistically with corruption," the commission said, referring to Saddam Hussein's Iraq before his ousting in the 2003 U.S. invasion.