Bush Administration Ignored Corruption

by Deb Cupples |   No, it's not surprising -- given that last year we learned that State Department and Justice Department officials may have turned a blind eye to corruption or illegal acts on the part of Iraq war contractors.  'Anything to reduce bad press about how the Bush Administration has conducted the war(s).

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported on the Bush Administration's ignoring of corruption at high levels in the Iraqi government:

"The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

"Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

"Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anti-corruption office, he said.

"The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government," Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

"The U.S. embassy 'effort against corruption - including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency - was little more than 'window dressing,'" he added. (AP)

Good job, AP!

Comments

[joe]

Imagine a nation that robs its own people blind, where liberty, freedom and justice no longer exist. Where the people are denied their civil liberties. Where the people are beaten, tortured and threatened by those who are supposed to protect and serve us. Where our sovereignty no longer exists. Where our government is ruled by corperations and special interests. Where the polititions sell us out every day and pass legislation that demolishes our freedoms.
Imagine a government that spits upon the constitution, that delibertly demolishes our economy, that starts wars for no reason, that spies upon its own people, that imposes illegal taxes upon us, that builds concentration camps on our own soil to inprison it's own people, that allows law enforcement to attack innocent people, that arrests those who protest against the government, that is imposing fascist policies against the people such as the REAL ID ACT, The Patriot Act, The Veterans' Disarmament Act among others, that breaks their own laws and rules to silence the people.
Imagine a people too fearful to stand up for their rights, that allows the government to trample allover them, that no longer has the ability to speak up against their oppressors, that has been disarmed and inprisoned by the government, that constantly lives in fear.
Is this our fate? Is this the story we shall tell to our children?
America was once a great nation but due to our own ignorance we allowed tyrants to deceive us, to impose their own will upon us. We had a chance to set things right, to restore freedom and order but we were too scared, too fearful of what would happen to take the chance our forefathers took just a few hundred years ago. They risked everything to create a new nation, where the people live in freedom and no government can take those rights away.

[D. Cupples]

Joe,

You're right: we don't have to imagine any of that. It seems to be taking place.