Hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - Assessing the State of Iraqi Corruption

Interview

Hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - Assessing the State of Iraqi Corruption

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REP. JOHN P. SARBANES (D-MD): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm sort of reeling here, because the testimony from everybody is such that I have virtually no hope left that any meaningful progress is being made in terms of rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq in a way that's -- that represents true progress. And I think everyone's testimony puts a lie to assertions that progress is being made.

I would ask the judge, whose testimony is courageous -- but he's clearly a man of courage innately -- what can you point to that would give me some hope that real progress is being made in combating the corruption that you're talking about today?

MR. AL-RADHI: (Through interpreter.) As I said in my testimony, that the government has closed many cases and intervened in our matters, and that goes against the constitution. That was the thing that impeded complete good results in fighting corruption.

REP. SARBANES: Okay. So you really can't point to anything that would give me hope.

Let me ask Mr. Walker or Bowen to take that -- to take that question. And maybe if you could just -- either one of you -- start by describing where you've seen a comparable level in your experience or from what you know or have studied, if you could cite a comparable level of corruption in terms of the impact that it's having on infrastructure and services within any society that you've -- you've looked at in recent past. I mean, what can I look to to get a frame of reference on what we're talking about here?

MR. WALKER: I don't know if I can give you a frame of reference, Mr. Sarbanes, but I would have some comments that are directly relevant to your line of inquiry.

First, I think we have to keep in mind that corruption, as has been mentioned, involves the abuse of public office for private gain. Corruption happens all over the world to varying degrees. It's happened in Iraq for a long time. There is, however, a difference. The United States is dedicating a lot of lives and a lot of money in Iraq, and in general terms I don't think it's any of our business to investigate corruption of other sovereign nations' money. However, when the United States has 160,000 troops on the ground and billions of dollars invested, I think we need to be concerned with it -- not to investigate it -- to be concerned with it, because I think it can have a direct impact on the ability of the Iraqi government to achieve the 18 benchmarks that have been laid out for political, security and economic progress in Iraq. And so that's why I think it's important. But I think there's a line that ought to be drawn as to how far we should go with --

REP. SARBANES: You cited four elements that are impacting progress. One was employee shortage. The other was sectarian influence. The third was the corruption within the various ministries. And the other was security. So let's take employee shortage. Any prospects any time soon that the employee shortage aspect of this will be fixed or remedied or progress much in a positive direction, from what you've seen?

MR. WALKER: Well, there's several angles there, one of which, there's been a brain flight outside of the country because of the security situation. The question is whether and to what extent that might be able to be reversed. I think it's going to take a more stable security situation for that to be reversed in any significant numbers.

Secondly, you have the De-Ba'athification policy, and if political progress can be made on that such that there might be a possibility to be able to tap some expertise from the former regime that may have quote-unquote "been Ba'athist" but not hard -- hard-line Saddamist, if you will, you might be able to achieve some progress there. But then I would ask Mr. Bowen whether he has any perspective, because he's on the ground.

MR. BOWEN: First of all, as to the employment issue, the real problem in Iraq is unemployment, which ranges up to 40 percent by some estimates, and that provides a breeding ground for insurgent recruitment. With respect to the corruption effort, or the attempt to stem the tide, we've issued two audits in the last 13 months that have found that the U.S. effort has not been well planned, well coordinated or well funded, that notwithstanding that we created two-thirds of the anti-corruption bulwark -- the IGs and the CPI.

I'm -- I spent a good portion of the first third of my time in this job taking on the support of the IGs because of a vacuum of support and pushing their growth, pushing their interests, trying to -- I pushed for an anti-corruption summit, which Ambassador Khalilzad held in November of 2005. But notwithstanding those efforts, the plan, the coordination, the funding never came about, unfortunately. It's disappointing, as our audits point out.

REP. SARBANES: Well, my time -- my time is up.

I want to thank the witnesses, and I just want to highlight a comment that the judge made, which was to suggest that the infrastructure in Iraq is almost equal to zero and that the services -- key services being provided by ministries in Iraq -- are almost equal to zero, which I think is a very damning assessment of where things stand.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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