Nonstop Theft and Bribery Stagger Iraq

[rodeodance]

Source: nytimes

December 2, 2007
Nonstop Theft and Bribery Stagger Iraq
By DAMIEN CAVE

BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 — Jobless men pay $500 bribes to join the police. Families build houses illegally on government land, carwashes steal water from public pipes, and nearly everything the government buys or sells can now be found on the black market.

Painkillers for cancer (from the Ministry of Health) cost $80 for a few capsules; electricity meters (from the Ministry of Electricity) go for $200 each, and even third-grade textbooks (stolen from the Ministry of Education) must be bought at bookstores for three times what schools once charged.

“Everyone is stealing from the state,” said Adel Adel al-Subihawi, a prominent Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, throwing up his hands in disgust. “It’s a very large meal, and everyone wants to eat.”

.........
And the extent of the theft is staggering. Some American officials estimate that as much as a third of what they spend on Iraqi contracts and grants ends up unaccounted for or stolen, with a portion going to Shiite or Sunni militias. In addition, Iraq’s top anticorruption official estimated this fall — before resigning and fleeing the country after 31 of his agency’s employees were killed over a three-year period — that $18 billion in Iraqi government money had been lost to various stealing schemes since 2004.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/middleeast/02baghdad.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[truthisfreedom]

1. But... but... rummy said they were free, and that's why they're all criminals now.

So what's the problem?

[ixion]

2. yeah, gee, what with the cholera and the roadside bombs and this, I can see why pols

keep saying it's getting better there. :eyes:

[Supersedeas]

3. Mission Accomplished -- are the media shills still on the flight deck?

[Psephos]

4. But there's no bribery, corruption, graft or theft in NYC, Detroit, L.A., Washington...

...especially Washington.

If anything, it sounds more like a small step forward to me, when civil crimes begin to displace violent crimes as a target of concern. Any other realists here?

[Javaman]

5. Iraq: largest money laundering outfit in history. nt