Britain: British Upset by Scale of Iraqi Ministry Corruption

British officials are seriously concerned about the level of corruption in the Iraqi defense ministry, after the embezzlement of vast amounts of money earmarked for the country's security forces.

Officials from the British Ministry of Defense had already warned US and Iraqi authorities against the squandering of money -- and have been proved right, on a catastrophic scale.

A report compiled by the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit has concluded that at least half, and probably more, of US$1.27 billion of Iraqi money spent on military procurement has disappeared into a miasma of kickbacks and vanished middlemen -- or else has been spent on useless equipment.

NEWS LEAK

The audit report, leaked to the US news organization Knight Ridder, is a blow to the credibility of the Iraqi army and its ability to contain the increasingly cogent insurgency.

According to the report, led by former human rights minister Abdel Baset al-Turki, the vanished money came solely from Iraqi funds, not from foreign donations to Iraq's military or the US-funded training budget.

The report focuses on an eight-month period after the transfer of sovereignty from the US-led occupation to caretaker Iraqi authorities on June 28 last year.

The report found that contracts were awarded to favored weapons suppliers, via middlemen, without bidding or approval from the prime minister's office.

CASH UP FRONT

Contracts included a clause stating that the full value of deals was to be paid up front, in cash.

All deals were done through third-party companies or agencies headed by Iraqi middlemen, most of whom have disappeared, leaving the Iraqi government without recourse when it complained of unfulfilled contracts.

PAPERWORK FALSIFIED

Internal documents, said the report, "incorrectly indicated that the [Iraqi] ministry of defense signed contracts with Poland, Arab countries, the United States and Europe, but we discovered that all contracts were signed and executed with Iraqi suppliers."

Among those missing is a man called Nair Mohamed al-Jumaili, sole beneficiary of 43 out of 89 contracts, into whose bank account several million dollars was paid.

Nine ministry officials, all of them appointed by the US, have been fired by the ministry, and face possible criminal charges. Among them is the ministry's procurement chief, Ziad Cattan.

DENIAL

Cattan, who returned to Iraq two days before the war began, contacted Knight Ridder from hiding, to deny the charges and the claims that he took a 10 percent finder's fee on every contract. He said the Americans controlled the purse strings of Iraqi defense expenditure.

During the period covered by the report, 20 US officials worked alongside the Iraqi defense ministry, and all the sacked officials had been appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority -- headed by Paul Bremer.

British defense officials say that "ultimately, Iraqi spending decisions are a matter for the Iraqi government."

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