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CBS: Iraqi government corruption funds insurgents who kill Americans
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
The government of Iraq is facing many challenges to its ability to run the country, both internal and external. According to a new report by 60 Minutes, "one of the biggest problems is corruption, which is robust even by Middle Eastern standards."
"Bribery and outright theft are flourishing in virtually every Iraqi ministry," notes CBS's Steve Kroft, "and some of those ill-gotten gains are being used to kill American troops."
State Department official James Mattil told CBS that the corruption is "across-the-board." Much of the stolen money finds its way to Iraqi insurgents or militias, while "in other cases, it is the militias and insurgents themselves who control some of the ministries who are involved in the corruption."
"It's known and tolerated by the prime minister and other officials within the government," emphasized Mattil, who observed the corruption first-hand while assigned as an advisor to Iraq's former Commissioner of Public Integrity, Judge Radhi al-Radhi.
Judge Radhi himself told CBS during an interview in 2006 that more than half a billion dollars had been stolen from the Iraqi defense ministry. Following that interview, he attempted to widen his investigation to other ministries, but was met with death threats and the murder of thirty-one members of his staff. In July 2007 a missile was fired at his house. He and his family finally left Iraq last September and are now living in the suburbs of Washington, DC............
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