Iraqi official: ‘Corruption has crippled Iraq’ (Final media push before report)

msnbc ^ | 9/8/2007 | Lisa Myers and Aram Roston

[tobyhill]

U.S. officials say the battle to clean up Iraq's government has suffered a "serious blow" with the resignation of the nation's top corruption fighter. The former watchdog, Judge Radhi Al Radhi, tells NBC News that Iraq's current government, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is riddled with so much corruption that the U.S. must stop supporting it. Rahdi is now in the United States, and his departure from the Iraqi government comes just as the U.S. prepares for a key report from Gen. David Petraeus about the military "surge" in Iraq.

Until last week, Rahdi headed the Iraqi government department responsible for rooting out graft and fraud in Iraq's young government. It is called the Commission on Public Integrity, or CPI. It refers its investigations into corrupt officials to Iraqi courts for prosecution.

But Rahdi recently resigned, and he says that was because of numerous threats on his life by corrupt Iraqi officials. "They have militias," he says, "and they attacked my neighborhood with missiles and these missiles fell very close to my house." If he returns to Iraq under current circumstances he believes he'll be killed.

[Enchante]

I’m not questioning whether he’s a sincere and honest fighter against corruption - I am questioning whether having him show up in the USA just before Sept. 15 to urge withdrawal of US support for the Iraqi government is the way to move forward successfully in any area (except what serves the interests of Iran and Syria). He is quite analogous to the people who urged JFK’s admin. to withdraw support for Diem (which led directly to his assassination and to the downward spiral of the situation in Vietnam). The answer to charges of corruption, no matter how well justified, is not always to blow up a government that is barely holding the country together.

I believe he is an honest but naive man who is probably being used by Soros or allies of Soros to join in the ‘Rat campaign against current policy. Look, if we can carry on the ‘surge’ long enough to achieve a decent measure of stability and security, then there is at least a ray of hope that progress can be made on other fronts such as reforming the Iraqi government and fighting corruption. But no government in history has ever been ‘improved’ by a collapse into all-out civil war, which is what our Demagogues are pushing for. I do not accept the proposition that the situation in Iraq must get much much worse before it can get better, which is the only course open to people pushing against Petraeus. This guy may be a good anti-corruption fighter but that does not mean he is not now a naive tool of the Demagogues.