The New York Times publishes its exciting report on 'The Rule of Thieves in Iraq' in Arabic

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The New York Times publishes its exciting report on 'The Rule of Thieves in Iraq' in Arabic

2020.08.08 - 12:57

 

People - Baghdad  

The New York Times returned to publishing its lengthy and exciting report on corruption operations in Iraq, and the mechanisms of "disbursing dirty money", again, this time in Arabic.  

At the end of last July, "People" translated the report that caused an uproar in the press circles, where the report was described as "unprecedented" in terms of "diving" in details, and touched on a number of sensitive files related to the scourge of corruption in Iraq, and the extent of its relationship with parties, personalities and institutions Balancing.   

  

  

Iraqi bloggers and activists in the October demonstrations transmitted quotes from the lengthy report published by the journalist Worth on July 29, 2020, after he prepared it on the ground during his stay in Baghdad, and conducted a series of meetings with officials, "corrupt" and influential figures who talked about the mechanisms of corruption and fundraising, and their relationship This is done by parties, factions, state agencies, companies and banking institutions.   

The report also set aside to study the October 2019 demonstrations, indicating that the youth’s anger against the factions is not limited to being affiliated with Iran, but because they have turned into wealthy groups that are only interested in collecting more money at the expense of unemployed Iraqi youth. The control of these groups over various commercial activities, as no businessman can continue his projects without the support of a militia, "according to the report, which also condemns the United States" for allowing the flow of funds and their access to those parties through the US Federal Reserve. "  

Below is the full text of the report as published by the newspaper in Arabic:  

Corruption, like violence, has become an impossible reason to live in Iraq. It has helped fuel the rise of ISIS, and America has provided at least $ 10 billion in hard currency annually that is used to fuel corruption.  

In early October, while he was working at his office in Baghdad, businessman Hussein Lakkis received a phone call from an unknown number. "We need to talk," the caller said. The man's voice was hoarse and his tone was threatening. Lakkis asked to meet, but he refused to give his name.  

Lakkis hesitated and expressed his opposition, after which the call ended. He almost forgot this conversation, but after a few minutes, one of his colleagues called him to send him disturbing news. The mysterious caller belongs to the Hezbollah Brigades, an Iraqi militia closely linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and the caller had a presentation he would like to discuss.  

When the militia man called again, Lakkis agreed to meet him after hesitating. He accompanied a group of his comrades and went to a house on Saadoun Street in the center of the capital, Baghdad, and arrived in Morocco. Lakkis was taken to a dark office inside the house, and presented to a small, bald man.  

The man directly entered the matter saying, “You must work with us, and you have no other choice. You can keep your cadres but you must do what we say, ”explaining that the Hezbollah Brigades will receive 20 percent of the total revenue of Lakis, which amounts to 50 percent of its profits.  

Lakis rejected this request. His company - called PalmJet - owns a five-year government contract to manage the VIP lounge at Baghdad International Airport, in addition to a hotel near the airport. The company also works regularly with some Western aircraft manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin. So Lakkis was unlikely to make any deals with a group like the Hezbollah Brigades classified by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization (as is the case with the Lebanese Hezbollah group). The bald man said that he would confiscate all that Lakis owns in Baghdad if this request was rejected. Lakkis looked at him surprised and said: I am an investor..There is a law that protects me! Bald man replied: We are the law. Then Lakkis was asked to give him a reply by the next afternoon.  

Five next-day Chevrolet SUVs parked outside the VIP lounge, then twelve men in black militia clothing got out, armed with weapons. They found Lakkis sitting in the airport hotel café, smoking and drinking coffee. Lakkis had been making phone calls since last night with all his acquaintances in the government and with the department directors at the airport. No one called him back, apparently as if everyone had been threatened or possibly bribed. The militia took Lakis's phone and asked him to sign a document giving up the contract. He tried to procrastinate for a while, while one of his employees sneaked outside to take a picture of the militia's cars, but they caught him, smashed his phone, and beat him.  

Lakkis, a Lebanese citizen, had started working in Iraq since 2011, and he knew that the country was burdened with crime and corruption but he believed that the airport, which is packed with hundreds of immigration and security officials, had a different situation.  

Later, the Lakkis told me that he waited 20 minutes for perhaps one of the policemen to come, but in the end he walked to the departure hall and boarded a flight to Dubai. Several days later, Kataib Hezbollah appointed another contractor to replace Lakis, who has not returned to Iraq since.  

This raid took place at the airport four days after the outbreak of the anti-Iraqi government protests, as thousands of young protesters poured into the streets of Baghdad and other cities chanting their famous and moving slogan, "We want a homeland." Soon the demonstrators took control of Tahrir Square, in the heart of Baghdad, and set up tents and started confrontations with the police. Although the chaos disrupted commercial and government work, it won the sympathy of Arabs in the region, and acted as the fuse that ignited the protest movement in Lebanon. For these protesting masses, groups such as Kataib Hezbollah are not only proxy agents of Iran, they are also the new face of bureaucratic thieves' rule that have gained their wealth at the expense of Iraq's youth, whose numbers have increased in poverty and unemployment. At the same time, some militia leaders have become among the wealthiest men in Iraq, famous for buying restaurants, fancy nightclubs, and abundant farms on the banks of the Tigris River.  

Those who supported and empower these militias are the new Iraqi political class that only seeks wealth. These multi-sectarian gangs have for many years practiced fraud at all levels, including constant control of checkpoints, bank fraud, and circumvention of the government payroll system. When Adel Abdul Mahdi came to power in 2018, to the extent that he was welcomed as a potential reformer, he tried to bring the militias into the state, but they outmaneuvered him and controlled him. His government included people with links to one of the worst graft networks that plagued the country.  

The United States is deeply involved in all this, not only because of its successive invasion that has shattered the country and its economy, but it is also providing funds that help keep the situation as it is, while American officials do whatever their Iraqi allies do to serve their own interests. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York still provides Iraq with at least $ 10 billion annually in hard currency oil sales. Much of this money is passed on to commercial banks under the pretext of being used for import operations, as part of a scheme that was controlled for a long time by money laundering gangs. At the same time, the United States is applying sanctions on Iran and Syria, with which Iraq shares porous borders, which creates an ideal environment for corruption.  

The administration of President Donald Trump may have shocked Iraqi militias by unexpectedly assassinating the powerful Iranian intelligence chief, Qassem Soleimani, while he was at Baghdad airport in January 2020. But Iran's allies such as the Hezbollah Brigades do not seem concerned, as they know that President Trump does not favor going to war, especially in light of the increasing government budget deficit caused by the Corona pandemic. So their top priority is preserving an Iraqi system in which everything is salable.  

The Corona pandemic has pushed Iraq to the brink of an existential crisis, as the collapse in global demand for oil lowered its price and thus shocked this country whose economy depends almost entirely on oil revenues. However, this may present an unprecedented opportunity for the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, to confront the biggest dilemma in the country. Corruption can now be considered a matter of life and death: Iraq must choose between feeding its people or enriching its thieves. Al-Kazemi promised to face this challenge, but it may not succeed unless the United States seizes this opportunity to repair some of the damage it has caused in Iraq and join the demonstrators with their goals of rebuilding their homeland on new foundations.  

Corruption in the US diplomatic record has always had a vague meaning: it is publicly reprehensible, but it is ignored in reality, and is even considered an inevitable evil. The United States has a long history of supporting kleptocrats (thief rulers) who have long been on the side of any strategic political rival. However, the price of these deals, which is usually in blood, has led to a reassessment of the situation. “Corruption is not only a fundamental political dilemma, it is the biggest cause of the security problems we have to face,” Sarah Chase told me in May. Chase's book, published in 2015 under the title “State Thieves,” documents the devastating impact of corruption in several countries in Africa and Asia.  

She based her book on her experience in Afghanistan, where she lived for years before she became a consultant to the Pentagon and saw how the massive blackmail of the US-backed government drove people to fall into the arms of the Taliban.  

Iraq can be considered a lesson and a clear example in this respect. Corruption in the 1980s was rare, and most of Saddam’s totalitarian regime ministers were honest and well watched. The transformation occurred during the 1990s when the United Nations imposed sanctions following Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. During a period of seven years, the average per capita income decreased to $ 450, from $ 3500. With low living wages, government officials could not live without taking the bribes that have become daily currency. The situation worsened after 2003, as US officers began handing out bundles of $ 100 in attempts to create friendships and stimulate the Iraqi economy. Their intentions were good during that period, but their haste was disastrous. A group of opportunists, including Iraqis returning from abroad, lined up to win large government contracts.  

After ISIS seized control of northwestern Iraq in 2014, the army, which numbered 350,000, came to defense, which is more than the number of jihadist brigades. In reality, however, the army was robbed of its power by inventing "ghost soldiers" that did not actually exist, allowing the commanders to embezzle hundreds or even thousands of salaries. These actions destroyed morale within the army and civilians in Mosul became angry, especially those who became more accepting of ISIS only for this reason. A study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative found that people of Mosul believed that corruption was the main factor in the emergence of ISIS.  

The process of calculating what was stolen from Iraq is not easy, as the deals were concluded in cash and it became difficult to obtain documents proving them, and government statistics are usually inaccurate. Nevertheless, the available information indicates that the wealth of Iraq was unlawfully plundered outside the country than any other country. This is what a senior statesman, who has long experience in financial matters, indicated that he had collected classified assessments for the Atlantic Council, an American research institution, based on his conversations with bankers, investigators and sources in a number of foreign countries. It was concluded that sums ranging from $ 125 to $ 150 billion are currently in the hands of Iraqis abroad, and that these people obtained most of these funds through illegal means. Some estimates put this amount at $ 300 billion. He has indicated that nearly $ 10 billion of the stolen money has been invested in London real estate.  

For non-Iraqis, Iraqi political life may sound like a guerrilla war, but most of the time it takes place under the cover of this conflict thefts are calm. In every government ministry, corruption lies in unwritten agreements with a faction. The Sadrists have the Ministry of Health and the Badr Organization as long as they have controlled the interior, while the wisdom movement controls the oil. Usually some newcomers have difficulty coping with these situations. One of the former technocratic ministers who spent decades abroad discovered when he took office that the ministry was contracting to buy vaccines worth $ 92 million, but he found another way to buy the same vaccine for $ 15 million. He told me, "When I did, a campaign was launched against me." He was trying to bridge the gap between Iraq's oil wealth and a crumbling health system, while his opponents were only interested in their partisan interests. The minister eventually found that these two philosophies could not go together, so he resigned from his position.  

The political leaders controlling this process are well known. Some of them are allies of America, such as the Barzani and Talabani families, who controlled the contracts of this region and its central bank until they became very wealthy. There is al-Maliki and his allies who still dominate the political scene, and Muqtada al-Sadr, a fickle Shiite cleric, who is also another godfather whose followers are known for asking for bribes. The system should have been addressed in 2014, when ISIS nearly took control of the country. Instead, the result was the emergence of a new type of parasite: the militias that helped defeat ISIS, commonly known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, a loose federation of armed groups, some of which had existed for decades. In 2016, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi recognized them as part of the security forces, and now they receive regular salaries, like the rest of the army and security services. One of the most powerful of these factions is the Hezbollah Brigades, which is accused of launching an attack on an Iraqi air base in December, and that killed an another site and led, a week later, to the assassination of Soleimani, who is its main sponsor. Although it is famous, it is shrouded in mystery. "We know almost nothing about its leadership," says Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has tracked the group since its founding. It is more like Freemasonry. One of them can belong to it and be in another movement at the same time.  

It has built an economic empire for itself by storming into legitimate businesses and government contracts.  

One of the least known and dangerous things that this militia did was its gradual takeover of Baghdad airport. This began years ago when Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, also backed by Iran, appointed loyal employees at the airport, according to a senior official there. They were also able to appoint employees for G4S, a British company that has long been contracted to manage airport security (the company did not comment on this topic). As a result, these two militias have access to surveillance cameras at the airport as well as access to a road called one kilometer that connects the runways to the perimeter of the airport, bypassing the security barriers, the official told me. (Qassem Soleimani and his convoy were bombed by a US drone last January when they were on this road.) The activities of these militias have become more hostile for a year, according to the official, as their affiliates threatened the director of the Civil Aviation Authority and forced him to appoint a deputy from his loyalists. In late October, one of the companies affiliated with the Hezbollah Brigades obtained a 12-year contract at the airports of Baghdad and Basra worth millions of dollars per year despite the fact that this company called the Gulf did not exist for more than two months at that time, and did not have the necessary licenses. Its founder had been banned from working at the airport. The contract has since been suspended, but the company that seized the VIP lounge and hotel from Hussein Lakkis is still in place. In late October, one of the companies affiliated with the Hezbollah Brigades obtained a 12-year contract at the airports of Baghdad and Basra worth millions of dollars per year despite the fact that this company called the Gulf did not exist for more than two months at that time, and did not have the necessary licenses. Its founder had been banned from working at the airport. The contract has since been suspended, but the company that seized the VIP lounge and hotel from Hussein Lakkis is still in place. In late October, one of the companies affiliated with the Hezbollah Brigades obtained a 12-year contract at the airports of Baghdad and Basra worth millions of dollars per year despite the fact that this company called the Gulf did not exist for more than two months at that time, and did not have the necessary licenses. Its founder had been banned from working at the airport. The contract has since been suspended, but the company that seized the VIP lounge and hotel from Hussein Lakkis is still in place.  

Baghdad airport is only one of the economic outlets that the militias now control, and they used the pretext of ISIS to have headquarters on most of the country's borders, as they exploited the threat of ISIS to install themselves in most of the land borders. Militias have dominated trade through seaports in the south for more than a decade, and in fact the militias play the role of a surrogate country in the shadows, as they impose higher wages on importers in order to speed up the delivery of goods. They have economic committees and offices in Baghdad with whom private companies can make deals that bypass the legal channels of the country. For example, an airport official told me that if he imports 100 cars from Dubai, it will take two months for legal customs clearance, but if he pays Kataib Hezbollah $ 10 to $ 15,000, this process will only take two days.  

The main source of currency that contributed to Iraq's slide toward bureaucratic thieves' rule is the Federal Reserve Bank, located in East Ratherford, New Jersey, where it is heavily guarded. Nearly every month, a truck comes packed with more than 10 tons of US currency, worth $ 1 to $ 2 billion. The money is later transferred to an air base and then to Baghdad. These sums go to the Iraqi government as a rent to sell the oil through a bank account with the New York Federal Bank. This unusual agreement is only one of the consequences of the American occupation when it directly controlled the Iraqi government and its sources of funding. This situation has remained as it is because it is convenient for both parties. The Iraqis receive dollars in a privileged manner while the United States remains dominant in the Iraqi economy. Dollar shipments that are sent periodically (which constitute a small portion of the country's total oil revenues) meet the needs of Iraqi currency exchange offices and importers who need hard currency. But in practice, a lot of these sums went to the hands of money launderers, terrorist groups and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and this is due to a special procedure at the Central Bank that few know about, which is the so-called dollar auction.  

The dollar auction is known as the "sewage system for Iraqi corruption," but little has been written about its internal mechanisms. The fraud schemes surrounding it have long fueled the civil war in Syria, including the war with ISIS. The US Treasury has done its best to keep dollar auctions out of the hands of ISIS and Iran, but has often overlooked other types of money laundering. As long as terrorists find new companies and ways to hide their participation in the auction, this often occurs with the complicity of central bank officials.  

Even calling it an auction is misleading, as it is a daily process in which the Central Bank offers dollars to a limited number of commercial banks in exchange for the Iraqi dinar. It was established by the US occupation authorities in 2003 to serve two purposes: to collect enough Iraqi dinars to pay salaries in cash for the huge number of government employees and to help the country pay import dues in dollars. Essentially, it is analogous to the process that some countries undertake to facilitate foreign trade. The main objective of this process is the following: a company intends to import shoes from India and then goes to a local Iraqi bank that holds the Indian company’s invoice. Exporting.  

The problem started with the accumulation of large sums of dirty money: Iraqis who stole huge sums through fake contracts or bribes were eager to exchange dinars for dollars so that they could use them abroad. To meet this need, a new class of opportunists has emerged, registering shell companies and preparing the false invoices necessary to conclude the import deal, which will be financed later through the dollar auction. In just days, a person who defrauded his country by the millions could become the owner of a luxury home in London. As for the fake imported materials, they will not leave much traces, because they were documented with identification cards and pictures of real people who agreed to play the role of company officials in exchange for bribes.  

And every time authorities suspect the Central Bank of Iraq or the Federal Reserve in New York, the counterfeiters update their game anew.  

According to a banking source and a former Iraqi official, there are small offices run by young men that forge documents professionally, for example, in order to avoid paying taxes for illegally imported goods, money launderers register dozens of companies and then neglect them and create new companies whenever it is due to pay taxes. They involved border authorities in the process, paying officials to obtain fake import certificates with real seals. Thus, money launderers controlled the central bank's daily dollar sales, which according to bank statistics amounted to more than 500 billion dollars since 2003. (The number is much higher than the sums that are transferred from the Federal Reserve Bank to Iraq because most of the dollars that the Central Bank sells are sent via electronic transfers from Iraq's oil revenues.)  

Sometimes fraud is laughablely exposed. In 2017, Iraq officially imported $ 1.66 billion worth of tomatoes from Iran, which is a thousand times more than the amount it imported in 2016. He also imported watermelon worth $ 2.86 billion from Iran, while last year's figure was $ 16 million. These numbers will be ludicrous even if Iraq cannot grow enough tomatoes and melons. Some economists have told me that the official import figures that still appear on the Ministry of Planning website are nothing but a poor cover for money laundering through the dollar auction.  

This auction has helped pour billions of dollars into the pockets of influential Iraqi brokers, and this fraud is based on the difference between the fixed exchange rate provided by the central bank pegged to the dollar and the market volatility, which is usually much higher. And as soon as the auction began in 2003, the money launderers realized that if they took out import deals, they could then resell the dollars they had obtained from the central bank to make an immediate profit. Once Iraqi political leaders realized how much money was being made from the process, they quickly took control of the auction process.  

As for the usual companies and banks that want to carry out legitimate import or borrowing activities, they have found themselves surrounded by those supported by political parties and militias. In order to cover up this control, these newcomers bought most of the remaining banks and turned them into mere means of their own for auction purposes.  

It is impossible to know the amount of billions stolen through the process of buying and selling currency, but many former bankers and Iraqi officials told me that such type of fraudulent accounts used for imports have been funded through the dollar auction since 2008. According to my personal estimate (based on figures from the Central Bank's website and information from Iraqi bankers), an estimated $ 20 billion was stolen, all of the money from the Iraqi people. The businessmen who run this process print their own currency because the cost of what they do is low, and lies in paying money for fraudulent bills and bribing banks and government officials. Some of the banks that receive high interest from the auction are simply understaffed small office fronts.  

A parliamentarian who was investigating a corruption case told me that a bank bought four billion dollars at the auction, which would bring him 200 million dollars in profit. After checking this bank, it became clear that it contained only one room, one computer and some guards.  

The harm caused by auction fraud isn't just the unfair benefits. Ordinary companies found themselves unable to obtain the loans they needed. Some importers were also unable to legally obtain dollars from the auction and had to resort to foreign banks. It is difficult to know the damage this process has inflicted on the economy, but most of the analysts I spoke with said that it was devastating to the private sector, making Iraq more dependent on oil revenues, which have halved in recent months.  

One Iraqi commander seriously tried to expose the crimes surrounding the dollar auction process, losing his popularity. Ahmed Chalabi, the banker and politician who helped the Bush administration justify the invasion of Iraq, carried out a parliamentary inquiry into the 2014 dollar auction. He revealed documents showing the involvement of the largest banks in the country and their owners in widespread fraud. Before revealing more about the scandal in November 2015, Chalabi died of a heart attack. (Despite the dubious timing, the autopsy did not reveal evidence of another cause of death.) As for the bankers that Chalabi revealed in his investigations, they have not faced any consequences and are still doing business.  

The auction is still standing today, along with the money laundering and theft associated with it. In mid-March, the central bank’s website recorded dollar sales that exceeded $ 200 million - more than $ 1 billion in one week - that were supposed to go as import payments. At a time when the Iraqi economy was closed due to the Corona pandemic, some of these imported materials were supposed to be legal, but some bankers told me that these numbers indicate large-scale money laundering operations. Another scandalous sign of corruption is the daily dollar sales to currency exchange offices, which are supposed to be used only by Iraqis traveling abroad. The average rate for these figures in mid-July was approximately 10 million to 11 million dollars per day, despite the fact that Baghdad airport was closed from March until July 23, and travel restrictions still exist until now.  

There is further evidence that the auction continues to provide funds to terrorist groups. In October, the Federal Reserve Bank sent a letter to the Central Bank of Iraq requesting that two banks besides an exchange office be prevented from using the dollar auction, justifying this by believing that there are three entities linked to ISIS or doing material dealings with ISIS. These three institutions are owned by a businessman named Hassan Nasser Jaafar Al-Lami, known in financial circles as the king of fraudulent bills. In January, an employee of the Central Bank of Iraq told a Lebanese TV station that Al-Lami was still using currency auction through other banks that differ from those indicated by the Federal Reserve.  

In some cases it appears that the central bank is intentionally trying to derail the efforts of the Federal Reserve or the US Treasury. In 2018, the Treasury issued sanctions against Aras Habib Karim, a politician accused of funding the Revolutionary Guard and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. Sanctions were imposed on the bank that he was running and which bears the name Bilad Islamic Bank. Instead of freezing Karim's money, the Central Bank directed that the $ 40 million of Albilad Bank shares owned by Karim and his family should be returned to them, according to a central bank document that I had obtained. When I asked Treasury officials about the central bank’s decision, they answered with a ready-made phrase: The Treasury continues to work closely with the Iraqi government to implement sanctions.  

Iraq is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. A tale of how the simplest corruption can quickly turn into a scourge and how difficult it is to restore conditions. It will not take long for the dust of time to cover those involved in networks of corruption, as it did in Afghanistan, Somalia and Venezuela. It's becoming a self-sustaining system, says Richard Mesk, who has spent decades studying the topic. It is not possible to intervene in one sector only because all sectors are related to each other, so several institutions must be changed simultaneously. Richard Mesk is a senior contributor and writes for a popular blog that tracks global anti-corruption efforts.  

And it is difficult to do without an external force. The US government was instrumental in stemming the corruption in Chicago that reached its peak in the 1920s, when gangster Al Capone took control of the mayor with money. There are not many examples of entire countries being reformed in the modern era except for small autocracies like Singapore when the former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was ousted in the 1960s.  

One of the biggest dilemmas of reform in Iraq is its dependence on cash, which is difficult to track and is more vulnerable to money laundering. So shifting Iraqis to the banking system where there are records showing verifiable payments has become a goal that anti-corruption advocates have been calling for for years. However, the transition from cash is fraught with risks, as modern technologies are vulnerable to being controlled by a few individuals who can exploit this process as a tool for money laundering.  

One of the boldest embezzlement operations in Iraq gives us an almost complete idea of the danger posed by such operations. This process uses a device called a QiCard, and it was intended to move the country towards electronic payment. This device was developed by a company called Smart Card International. It allows employees and retirees to receive their monthly salaries in cash from thousands of centers spread across the country. Before this card appeared in 2007, employees had to wait hours outside government banks to receive their money. The company is now competing with smaller companies and publishing huge ads with the slogan: Join the Biggest Family. It presents itself as a local tech company helping to transport Iraq into the information age, with pictures posted on its official website showing the biometric registration process and happy customers making cashless payments. However, the company's association with government salaries has given it great power.  

All this allows the company to operate almost without supervision, according to officials I spoke to and documents I obtained from the Iraqi Finance Ministry and the Central Bank. The company has violated one of the legal conditions stipulating that its payment system be included in the national card payment network, which authorizes the Central Bank to monitor the operations of this company. The documents I have seen describe desperate attempts to hold this company responsible for its banking operations as well as the complaints of retirees who have indicated that this card system deducts amounts from their salaries. The CEO of Key Card, who I contacted by e-mail, said that the company abides by the instructions and that its banking dealings are monitored by the Central Bank and audited by independent institutions on a regular basis.  

In light of this blackout, this card is used by Iranian-backed militias that run what are known as ghost employees to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the state, according to some government officials, including someone close to the financial department of the PMF. This official told me that the crowd had registered 70,000 soldiers as part of the electronic payment process through the ki-card (it was not clear if this procedure was done with the knowledge of QI managers). Phantom soldiers have been a source of enrichment for senior officers in the Iraqi army and police for years. However, it appears that the Qi card payment method has taken fraud to a higher level. The average salary of a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) is approximately one thousand dollars a month, which means that the revenues of this trick are 800 million dollars annually. This operation was conducted in the strictest secrecy by influential figures closely linked to Iran, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was assassinated with Qassem Soleimani in January.  

The Key Card gets huge profits from the wages it charges for electronic transactions, and some of these profits, as reported to me by another senior official, are shared with other Iranian-backed personalities.  

As the high-ranking official told me, the founder of QI, a businessman called Baha Abdul Hadi, has immunized himself from censorship and criticism for many years through his business relationships with the most influential people, including the leaders of militias linked to Iran. One of them is Ammar al-Hakim, a wealthy cleric and prominent politician. Another person is Shibl al-Zaidi, secretary general of a militia called the Imam Ali Brigades, and the Treasury Department issued sanctions against him in 2018 for his financial dealings with the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah. In addition to Nasser al-Shammari, a commander of the Hezbollah militia al-Nujaba. A QI spokeswoman told me that Abd al-Hadi had nothing to do with al-Hakim, al-Zaydi, or al-Shammari.  

At the same time, it seems that Key Card tried to get close to US officials and succeeded in some way. At the beginning of 2018, one of the officials appointed by Trump, named Max Primorac, suggested that the United Nations use the QiCard company in banking transactions, according to a report published in May of Before the ProPublica site. Primorac was doing consulting work at the time with the Iraqi American Marquis Foundation. The United Nations did not work with KeyCard, but Primorac's position has triggered a work ethic complaint by the US State Department. (When asked about this complaint, Primorac replied by sending a note, indicating that no investigation had been opened into this matter.) Then he became assistant to US Vice President Mike Pence.  

The Key Card's penetration of American influence reminds us that corruption isn't just about bribes or tax evasion. The global financial crisis of 2008, which exposed relations between politicians and stock speculators, helped stoke the populist movements that are still active in Europe, and the election of Donald Trump made corruption a characteristic of our political life even as he accused his opponents with this word.  

One afternoon in February, I drove to an urban site in eastern Baghdad called the Sadr Canal. It is an empty strait that stretches for 24 kilometers between the sides of two main highways at the western end of Sadr City and has a canal in the middle. For years, Baghdad city authorities have spoken of an ambitious project to turn this place into an entertainment area that includes sports fields, parks and restaurants. As well as building bridges over the canal where visitors can board boats from that area. In 2011 the local government signed a contract with three construction companies worth $ 148 million. Today this place is a landfill that no money seems to have been spent on. After crossing the highway and crossing the grass, I found my feet covered in plastic waste. Then I walked for twenty minutes and saw only a few signs of construction: a cheap playground for children, mounds of dirt, and two warehouses of reinforced concrete that were not yet completed. As for the water in the canal, it seemed to be stagnant.  

No one seems to know what happened to the money spent on the channel’s front, but the Integrity Commission’s report was referring to familiar observations: delays, disagreements and a former mayor who had fled the country with his deputy, causing intentional damage of $ 12 million. Most of it went into his own pocket. There are similar projects across Iraq: rusty cranes left next to semi-constructed mosques and housing projects. Many of them are still in legal and political disputes. Billions of dollars have been spent on electricity, but Iraq still suffers from a power outage of up to twenty hours a day.  

Iraqis call suspicious businessmen who have become rich at the expense of the country whales, they are always above the law. I was warned as I prepared this article that my life would be in danger if I encountered any of them about these illegal activities, but I finally succeeded in talking to one of the "whales". He is a construction mogul and told me that he spent years bribing politicians to secure contracts worth millions of dollars. The man described a world full of darkroom deals in which deadly rivalry is commonplace, as well as easily changing political alliances where the currency in which the currency used is always the up-front cash dollar. It was clear that he had accepted financial blackmail as part of his daily reality. He did not feel any guilt about this thing. He has offices and homes in several countries and spoke colloquial Iraqi like a man who had not received much formal education.  

I got to know this person through a government official who had met him through another friend. It was impossible for me to verify the details of the stories they told, but they matched everything I had heard from officials and bankers about the way high-level corruption was made. We spoke on the phone for about two hours, and he told me about one of the deals he managed, which was a large construction project for which the government had allocated 40 billion dinars, equivalent to approximately $ 33 million.  

He told me that in fact I only spent about 10 billion dinars on construction. The rest went as bribes to officials and parties, while the rest of five billion dinars was net profit.  

He told me that the election of governors in the past six or seven years who have had a major impact on contracts has been through deals with businessmen who pay money to members of the provincial councils who elect the governor in exchange for a share in the governorate's contracts. He said that anyone with money could manipulate these matters. Deals are coordinated with Conservative MPs who are loyal to different parties and share the proceeds of inflated contracts. As this man told me, a huge contract could provide bribes that cover the costs of electing a governor.  

Government officials are not just the recipients of bribes, he told me, as members of the provincial council are knocking on the doors of businessmen and asking them: How can they help? Is there someone they need to tarnish their reputation? Is there a conspiracy they have to reinforce? Is there anyone I should report to the Integrity Committee? In such twisted arts, money is the player first. For example, if you want to conspire against the Dawa Party, members of the provincial council will cooperate with you if you pay them money, he told me.  

Behind all these deals are militias that provide protection and take their share of the money. He told me that no businessman or bank without an armed group supporting him would not be able to operate.  

This is not a surprise to Iraqis, as they can see how anti-corruption agencies have become vehicles for the spread of bribery. Unfortunately, these are not just accusations without evidence. When I was in Baghdad, I went to meet Mishaan al-Jubouri, a 63-year-old businessman and politician, with eyes and a bald head. He was a businessman in the 1980s and fled Iraq at the end of that decade to join the opposition. In 2006, he fled Iraq again after he was accused of plotting attacks on oil pipelines. Then he returned to Iraq, was elected to Parliament and became a member of the Integrity Committee. He told me while we were sitting in his house in Al-Harithiya that everyone was involved, including the religious and the secular, in villages and cities, from leaders to the youngest members. It became a culture to be proud of.  

In 2016, al-Jubouri caused an international press sensation when he told the Guardian newspaper that he himself was involved in corruption, as he took a $ 5 million bribe from someone who wanted him to drop a corruption charge on him. He explained to the journalist that at least he was sincere in what he said.  

But when I met him in February, al-Jubouri retracted this confession, claiming that he had invented this story of bribery. . For observers who watch the situation from other continents, the street demonstrations that erupted in Iraqi cities looked like a sudden revolution, but in fact they were boiling for years throughout Iraq. A young protester, who was short in stature, 28 years old, from a village called Musa (who requested that his last name not be mentioned for fear of retaliation) told me about the gang economy in Iraq where real qualifications are excluded and job offers come only at exorbitant prices equivalent to salaries Several months. After he spent five years studying veterinary science, he only found one job opportunity, a one-year contract with a salary of $ 200 a month, which he was expelled from because he did not fulfill his manager’s desire to join a militia. He had no other choice but to accept a job in a local electricity department with a salary of $ 375 a month.  

His rebellion began more than two years ago when documents were found showing the director of the Electricity Department being involved in receiving bribes in government contracts. Moussa helped organize protests calling for the director's dismissal. (He was actually expelled, according to Musa's account.) In the following year, Musa began communicating with other young people across Iraq who had similar experiences and shared the same feelings, as many of them believed that their country had become a vessel for Iran and its local gangs. By the summer of 2019, the network of local protests began to expand further and Musa was among the organizers calling for the revolt that began on October 1.  

About a week later, he found himself sitting on a sofa across from Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, while the country was boiling. More than 100 people were killed in chaotic clashes with the police, and the economy was stagnant. Desperate about restoring order, Abdul Mahdi was summoning Musa and eight other protest leaders to hear from them. Musa handed him a paper containing the protesters ’demands, which the latter read quickly and silently. Addressing corruption was one of these demands, and after a short dialogue, he asked one of Abdul Mahdi's advisers, saying, "Give us a list of the most corrupt officials."  

Musa, who was impatient, was astonished and confused by this request for what he told me, as he knew that he was indeed wanted for arrest by the security forces, and he had to go into hiding after a short period like many other protest leaders. He also knew that a lot of the corrupt characters were likely sitting on the same sofa! His answer to the question was: "This is not our specialty but rather your work." The meeting ended after ten minutes. Shortly afterwards, Abdul Mahdi announced that the demonstrations lacked leadership, and the same could have been said about the Abdul Mahdi government! So, after less than two months, after the escalation of the insurgency, Abdul Mahdi announced his resignation.  

The massive demonstrations surprised everyone, and the militias for the first time stood on the defense in years after some demonstrators mocked them by calling them following the Iranians. Even some of the crowd members participated in it.  

Parliament has passed a law allowing the Integrity Commission to verify the incomes of public officials and impose fines or imprisonment on anyone who cannot prove their sources of financial income. In Baghdad, I met the lawyer, Marwa Abd al-Reda, who showed me on her cell phone how the Iraqi Bar Association spent huge money on building a swimming pool. The scandal was exposed before any lawyer could swim in this pool! She told me: A lot was spent in the past and none of the lawyers spoke, but now the situation is different.  

The spirit of non-concession is what kept these demonstrations alive, at least until the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, after months of demonstrations the protesters refused to name any person for the presidency and the demonstrators commented on this position: They wanted to change the system, but anyone trying to approach change, even if it was Among them becomes a suspect. The only heroes were the dead fellow demonstrators whose photos appear in the squares.  

There is a struggle at the heart of the protest movement trying to free itself from the difficult history of the country. Many young people realize that Iraq, like other ancient colonies in Asia and Africa, often raised the military and clerics to the status of gods, but they were turning into monsters, and this is one of the reasons behind the demonstrators' refusal to have a certain leadership that represents them. They know that what matters now is institution building, not naming rescuers. But they also yearn to find high-profile public figures that guide and inspire them.  

At the beginning of the demonstrations a leader emerged who appeared to be an extraordinary hero. Abd al-Wahhab al-Saadi is considered one of the top officers of the Counter-Terrorism Service, and he is a popular figure throughout Iraq, not only because of his military record in fighting ISIS, but also it is said that he is almost the only one among the senior officers who are not aligned with a particular party and have not received any bribes. Last September, the Prime Minister suddenly decided to dismiss this leader, which led the demonstrators to consider him a political martyr who lost the battle because he refused to play the game. They started uploading his pictures, calling his name. Some called for him to be a replacement for Abdul Mahdi. But Al-Saadi answered these calls with some distrust. He said that he is a military man who is not qualified for a political position. Some of the demonstrators were disappointed, while some considered this situation a badge of honor.  

Al-Saadi is a tall man of 57 years, with a stoic personality and gray hair. Despite his belonging to the Shiite sect, the people of Mosul, most of whom are Sunnis, consider him the liberator from the tyranny of ISIS, and they erected a statue for him there. (But the government felt the danger of this movement, so it removed the statue before it was inaugurated.) And when I met him in February, he was still feeling the attention it had popularly received and he told me about the number of calls he had received from political parties that he hoped would be aligned with or adopt it. In this regard, he said while smoking his cigarette that the Prime Minister wanted to use it to obtain the support of public opinion.  

Al-Saadi was not comfortable talking about himself, as he was characterized by the humility of the Spartan, and he usually put his hands in his pockets and looked away as if he was assessing the situation of one of the military exercises in the field in contrast to the behavior of Iraqi political figures who always feel its importance. Politicians were usually stocky and talkative while he was skinny and modest. They often own the luxury homes in London and Amman, while Saadi lives in an apartment in Baghdad. I do not possess evidence that Al-Saadi did not receive a bribe, but many Iraqis wish to embarrass him, and yet no evidence has emerged against him. He is so honest that he refused to help his son, who joined the army, a level of integrity that some of his colleagues saw as unnatural. When I asked him about this, he told me that his father died when he was young, and that his older brother had been executed by Saddam Hussein. He wanted the same thing for his son, who told him "You must rely on yourself."  

On a Friday evening, I met Al-Saadi at one of the cafes, “Reda Alwan Cafe” in a bustling middle-class neighborhood. We sat at a table outside, surrounded by the aroma of coffee and the flavor of tobacco. Although he was a little talkative, he seemed comfortable talking about politics and history, and his conversation was repeatedly interrupted because of the clients who wanted to shake hands with him and take pictures with the hero of Mosul. He was responding to all of them with a shy smile, and when they asked him if he would play any role in the new government, he would wave to them and say, “God willing,” (after our last meeting, Prime Minister Al-Kazemi reappointed and promoted Al-Saadi).  

And when we tried to leave the cafe. People recognized him on the street as soon as he stood and gathered around him. He stood tall, taking pictures and shaking hands with people. As the cars were slowing down to look at him, I heard someone shouting, "Look! It's Saadi. ”And one of the women started to sing. His bodyguards were nervous but there was nothing they could do as everyone wanted to have a moment with him.  

After 15 minutes, while he was only a foot from the cafe, the street became crowded. A middle-aged man began singing rhymes about the Saadi championship and about his role in saving Iraq from ISIS. While people clapped cheerfully as they took pictures. Then a young taxi driver dressed in a black jellaba shoved into the crowd, telling al-Saadi how his brother had been killed in the protest square in Baghdad. He thanked Al Saadi for all that he had presented and then allowed other fans to enter. Then came a soldier wearing a helmet and body armor and began to plead with Saadi to be the next defense minister. Then a policeman appeared saying, "We want him as Minister of the Interior."  

As I stood in the dark, I was moved upon seeing those yearning faces full of hope. All they are asking is what many of us, lucky enough, take for granted, at least at this time: relatively honest bureaucrats, clean streets, police officers who don't ask for bribes. They want a country.  

[yota691]

30 pages caused an unprecedented fuss!

'People' publishes the full text of the New York Times report on Iraq’s corruption: Names and Sensitive Destinations

2020.07.31 - 15:37

 

Baghdad - People   

The report of the American journalist Robert Worth caused an uproar in the press circles, as the report was described as "unprecedented" in terms of "diving" in details, and touched on a number of sensitive files related to the scourge of corruption in Iraq, and the extent of its relationship with parties, personalities and institutions.  

Iraqi bloggers and activists in the October demonstrations transmitted quotes from the lengthy report published by the journalist Worth on July 29, 2020, after he prepared it on the ground during his stay in Baghdad, and conducted a series of meetings with officials, "corrupt" and influential figures who talked about the mechanisms of corruption and fundraising, and their relationship This is done by parties, factions, state agencies, companies and banking institutions.  

The report also set aside to study the October 2019 demonstrations, indicating that the youth’s anger against the factions is not limited to being affiliated with Iran, but because they have turned into wealthy groups that are only interested in collecting more money at the expense of unemployed Iraqi youth. The control of these groups over various commercial activities, as no businessman can continue his projects without the support of a militia, "according to the report, which also condemns the United States" for allowing the flow of funds and their access to those parties through the US Federal Reserve. "  

He translated "People", with a limited act that does not change the content, the report titled "Inside the Iraqi kleptocracy" (The Authority of Thieves), which spans about 30 pages.  

  

Translation of the text of the report:  

“In early October, while working in his office in Baghdad, a businessman named Hussain Lakis received a phone call from a number he had never seen before. The caller said,“ We need to talk. ”The man’s voice was self-assured, and a little threatening. That "Qais" come to meet him, but he refused to mention his name.  

Reluctance to measure, and call ended. He might have forgotten the entire call, had it not been for a subsequent call from a colleague a few minutes later that carried disturbing news. The mysterious caller was from Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iraqi militia with strong ties to the IRGC, they had a business proposal to discuss.  

When the militia called again, Qais reluctantly agreed to a meeting. He gathered a few colleagues, and they all headed to a house near Saadoun Street in central Baghdad, inside, he was taken to a dimly lit office, and he was introduced to a bald person. The bald man said: “You need to work with us, and there is no other option, you can keep your employees, But you must do what we say. " He explained that the Hezbollah Brigades will take 20 percent of the total revenues of the "Lakis" company, about 50 percent of its profits.  

Lakis refused. His company, Palm Gate, had a five-year government contract to run a VIP lounge at Baghdad International Airport, along with a nearby hotel; It also routinely operates with Western airlines such as Lockheed Martin  

 It had no dealings with a group like Kataib Hezbollah, which was listed by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization (as is the case with the unrelated Lebanese group also called Hezbollah).  

The bald man replied that if he refused "Qais," he would seize everything he owned in Baghdad. Lqais stared at the parent, and told him, "I am an investor, there is a law."  

The bald man replied: "We are the law." He asked Lakis to answer him at noon the next day.  

  

The next afternoon, five Chevrolet cars drove up and twelve men, dressed in black paramilitary clothing and carrying weapons, got out. They found "Lakis" in the cafe of the airport hotel, who had been in contact with the government since the previous night, along with the heads of airport departments. None of them called back, it was as if they had been warned, or maybe they had received their rations.  

The militia took Lakis' phone and told him to sign a document renouncing his contract. He paused for a while. One of his employees sneaked outside to take a picture on the mobile phone of militia vehicles, but they grabbed him, broke his phone, and hit him.  

Lakis, who is Lebanese, had been working in Iraq since 2011. He knew the country was plagued by crime and corruption, but he believed that the airport, with hundreds of regular immigration and security officials, was different.  

 Lakis told me later, "I waited 20 minutes, maybe someone will come, the police ... something." Finally, he walked to the departure hall and went on a flight to Dubai.  

 Days later, Kataib Hezbollah installed its preferred contractor in its place. Lakis did not return to Iraq since then.  

This airport incident occurred only four days after the start of the anti-government protests (October 1, 2019), when thousands of young protesters were flooding the streets of Baghdad and other cities, chanting their poignant slogan: "We want a homeland" or "We want a state."  

 Protesters quickly filled Tahrir Square in the heart of Baghdad, setting up tents and fierce confrontations with police. Although the chaos caused roads to be blocked in the city, it gained the sympathy of Arabs across the region, sparking a powerful protest movement in Lebanon.  

For those who took part in the rallies, groups like Kataib Hezbollah are not just Iranian proxies. It is the latest kleptocratic face that has affected itself at the expense of Iraq's youth who are left out of work and destitute in ever-increasing numbers.  

Meanwhile, some militia leaders have joined the ranks of the richest men in Iraq, and have become famous for buying upscale restaurants, nightclubs and wealthy farms on the Tigris River.  

The militias have formed a new Iraqi political class, the only ethic of which is self-enrichment. Over the years, this cross-sectarian gang has perfected tricks at all levels: routine checkpoint misinformation, bank fraud, and embezzlement of government salaries.  

Adel Abdul Mahdi, hailed as a potential reformer when he became prime minister in 2018, had hoped to subjugate the militias to the state, but instead, the militias overcame him, and his government included people with connections to some of the worst graft projects plaguing them. Country.  

  

The United States is involved  

The United States is deeply involved in all of this, and not just because its invasions destroyed the country and helped destroy the economy. America is giving money.  

The Federal Reserve in New York still supplies Iraq with at least $ 10 billion annually in hard currency from oil sales in the country. Much of that has been passed on to commercial banks, ostensibly for imports, in a process long ago hijacked by Iraq's money laundering gangs.  

At the same time, the United States is imposing sanctions on two countries - Iran and Syria - with which Iraq shares borders, which are fertile ground for corruption.  

  

The Trump administration may have shocked Iraqi militias with the unexpected assassination in January of Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport. But Iranian proxies like Kataib Hezbollah are not overly anxious.  

They know that President Trump has little passion for war, especially in light of COVID-19. Their top priority is to maintain an Iraqi system in which literally everything is sold.  

  

The coronavirus pandemic has now pushed Iraq to the brink of an existential crisis. A global collapse in oil demand has lowered prices historically, delivering a terrible shock to a country whose economy depends almost entirely on oil revenues. But it may also provide an exceptional opportunity for the new Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, to confront his country's most difficult problems.  

Corruption can now be seen as a matter of life and death. Iraq must choose between feeding its people or enriching the ruling thieves.  

Al-Kazemi has promised to take on this challenge. It is unlikely to succeed unless the United States seizes this opportunity to undo some of the damage it has inflicted on Iraq and to create common cause with protesters hoping to rebuild their country on a new basis.  

  

In the records of American diplomacy, corruption has long had an ambiguous situation: publicly denounced, but in practice it is often seen as acceptable and beneficial.  

Sarah Chase told me in May that "corruption is not just a fundamental political problem, but the most important driver of most of the security problems we are supposed to try to address."  

Chase's 2015 book, "Thieves of State," documents the devastating effects of corruption across a range of countries in Africa and Asia.  

Building on her experiences in Afghanistan, where she lived for years before becoming an advisor at the Pentagon and seeing how rampant extortion and the implantation of a US-backed government helped push the local population into the arms of the Taliban, Iraq may be a more materialized lesson.  

  

The Growth of Corruption: From Saddam to Al-Maliki  

 In the 1980s, corruption was rare, and ministries in Saddam Hussein's authoritarian government were clean and mostly fine.  

 Change came during the 1990s, when the United Nations imposed crippling sanctions after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. In just seven years, per capita income in Iraq has decreased from about $ 3,500 to $ 450.  

 With the value of their salaries collapsing, government officials could not survive without taking bribes, which had become the currency of everyday life.  

The rot got worse after the 2003 invasion, when American officers began distributing money in an effort to make friends and boost the economy.  

They may have had good intentions, but their clumsy haste was disastrous. A new group of opportunists, including returning Iraqi exiles, lined up for major government contracts.  

Billions were lost and theft expanded after the oil boom of 2008, thanks to a network of oligarchs empowered by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.  

  

When ISIS seized control of northwestern Iraq in mid-2014, the Iraqi forces tasked with confronting the group consisted of 350,000 soldiers, much larger than the attacking "jihadist" brigades.  

 In fact, the army was destroyed by the "aliens", as the commanders were getting hundreds, even thousands, of salaries.  

These practices destroyed morale within the army and fueled popular anger among civilians in Mosul, who are more receptive to ISIS than they had previously been.  

 A recent study of people in the Mosul area, led by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, found that they saw corruption as a major reason for the emergence of ISIS.  

  

Between 125 to 300 billion dollars!  

It is not easy to estimate the full cost of what was stolen from Iraq. Deals are done in cash, documents are difficult to obtain, and government statistics are often unreliable. However, available information indicates that Iraq may have illegally exhausted its national wealth abroad more than any other country.  

A senior Iraqi statesman with long experience in finance compiled a classified assessment of the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, based on conversations with bankers, investigators and contacts in a variety of foreign countries, and concluded that between $ 125 billion and $ 150 billion are owned by Iraqis. Abroad, most of them are "illegally acquired". Noting that other estimates amount to $ 300 billion, and it is estimated that about $ 10 billion of the stolen money is invested in London real estate alone.  

The full reckoning extends far beyond the financial bill to the damage to Iraqi culture and society, a point that I have often heard that older Iraqis raise with great sadness during the years I lived there.  

  

Models of the parties' shares ... and the resigning minister   

Political life may seem like a guerrilla war, but its troubled surface most days conceals a quiet and joyful act of looting, in every government ministry the largest spoils are allocated by the unwritten agreement of one faction or another.  

The Sadrists have the Ministry of Health, the Badr Organization has long maintained the Ministry of Interior, and the Oil Ministry is affiliated with Al-Hikma.  

 Sometimes the newcomers have difficulty adapting to this situation.One of the former ministers - a technician who spent decades abroad - discovered upon his arrival to his post that his ministry was buying vaccines with a contract of $ 92 million, and he found another way to buy the same vaccines for less than $ 15 million. "As soon as I did, I encountered a great deal of resistance," he told me, "a fierce campaign against me."  

His priority was to address the gap between Iraq's oil wealth and its devastated health system, which lacked access to many essential medicines. As for his opponents, the only necessity was their interests and the interests of their parties.  

The minister finally decided that these two philosophies were irreconcilable, and resigned. (Like most of the people I spoke to in this article, he spoke on the condition that I not use his name. Corruption is the third way of Iraqi politics: Touching it can easily kill you or your relatives.)  

  

The political leaders who preside over this graft are well known. Some of them are loyal allies of the United States, the families of Barzani and Talabani in Kurdistan used their control over the contracts of that region and its central bank to get very rich.  

 Al-Maliki and his circle of close associates are still registering a presence on the Iraqi political scene.  

Muqtada al-Sadr, the mercurial Shiite cleric, is another godfather whose followers are known for demanding huge commissions.  

  

2014 and enrich the factions  

 This regime was supposed to take a jolt in 2014, when ISIS took over the cities, but instead, the main result was the emergence of a new breed of parasites: the militias that helped defeat ISIS, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF.  

The Hashd is a loose federation of armed groups, some of which have existed for decades. In 2016, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi recognized her as part of the country's security forces, and they now receive regular salaries as soldiers and police officers do.  

  

Among the most powerful of those factions, Kataib Hezbollah, which is accused of launching an attack on an Iraqi air base in December that killed an another site and led to the assassination of Soleimani a week later.  

Despite its prominence, it is shrouded in mystery, says Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has followed the faction since its founding: "We know almost nothing about leadership." At the same time, it has built an economic empire, by making its way into legitimate companies and government contracts. "  

  

Baghdad Airport: A common goal of Kataib Hezbollah and Asa'ib   

Among the militia’s lesser known and most disturbing projects is their gradual advance to gain control of Baghdad airport.  

 It all started several years ago, when Kataib Hezbollah and another Iranian-backed militia called Asaib Ahl al-Haq began to covertly place their loyal workers around the airport, according to a senior airport official I spoke with. And they also managed to leverage G4S, which is a long term British company.  

The official also said that the security contract at the airport went to employ the members of the two factions. (G4S did not agree to make a comment.)  

As a result, militias now have access to all CCTV cameras at the airport and to a limited access road called Kilometer One that connects runways to the perimeter of the airport, bypassing security barriers, the official told me: When a US drone struck Qassem Soleimani and his entourage in January, I was I just got out of that way.)  

The official told me, then, militia members were holding the director of Baghdad airport at gunpoint and forcing him to employ a loyal member of her as a deputy.  

In late October, a company that is a front for Kataib Hezbollah won a 12-year contract at Baghdad and Basra airports, worth tens of millions of dollars annually, despite the fact that the company was only two months old and did not obtain the necessary accreditation or license.  

The contract was terminated at that time, but the company that acquired the VIP lounge and hotel company from Hussein Lakis is still in place.  

  

  

Baghdad airport is just one of the economic gates that militias now control. They have used the ISIS threat to establish themselves in most of the country's land borders. Militias have controlled most of the trade through the southern ports of Iraq for more than a decade.  

In fact, the militias operate in the shadows, charging importers higher fees for easier entry and delivery.  

 It has economic committees and opens offices in Baghdad, where private companies can strike deals to circumvent the legal channels in the country.  

 The airport official told me, “For example, if you bring 100 cars from Dubai and go through the legal procedures, it may take two months to evacuate them, but if you pay Kataib Hezbollah, for example, $ 10,000 to $ 15,000, it may take only two days.”  

  

The situation is "right" for the United States  

The money that has fueled Iraq's decline into kleptocracy mostly originates from the heavily guarded Federal Reserve complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey.  

 Every month or so, there is a truck loaded with more than 10 tons of American currency wrapped in plastic, funds worth $ 1 billion to $ 2 billion that are flown to an air base and flown to Baghdad. It is affiliated with the Iraqi government, which directs proceeds from oil sales through an account at the Federal Reserve Board in New York.  

This unusual arrangement is a legacy from the American occupation, when America directly controlled the Iraqi government and its money. The situation remains the same because it suits both sides: Iraqis get quick and preferential access to dollars, and the United States maintains enormous influence over the Iraqi economy.  

Ostensibly, regular shipments of dollars (a small fraction of the country's total oil revenue) are to meet the needs of Iraqi exchange firms and importers, who need cash. In practice, many dollars have found their way into the hands of money launderers, terrorist groups and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, thanks to an unknown ritual run by the Central Bank of Iraq under the name of "dollar auction."  

Dollar sale auction  

The currency auction was called "The Sewer System for Iraqi Corruption," but its insider business is rarely reported.  

The fraud plots revolving around him have fueled all sides in the Syrian civil war, including ISIS.  

The U.S. Treasury has made serious efforts to keep auction dollars out of the hands of ISIS and Iran, but it often turns a blind eye to other types of money laundering. Terrorists have repeatedly found new companies and methods to disguise their participation in the auction, often with the complicity of central bank officials.  

  

Misleading auction naming; It is a daily process in which the Central Bank of Iraq provides dollars to a limited number of commercial banks in the country in exchange for the Iraqi dinar.  

It was established by the US occupation authorities in 2003 to serve two purposes: to raise enough dinars to pay salaries in cash to the fleet of government employees in Iraq and to help the country pay for much-needed imports in dollars.  

In principle, an auction is similar to the process some other countries use to facilitate foreign trade. It was supposed to operate like this: a company intending to import shoes from India, for example, would go to its local Iraqi bank with an invoice from the Indian shoe company. The local bank certifies the transaction and deposits the required amount in Iraqi dinars with the central bank, which transfers dollars to the exporter's account.  

  

The problem began with a massive tide of dirty money: Iraqis who stole large sums through fraudulent contracts or bribe schemes were eager to trade their dinars in dollars, so that they could use them abroad.  

For this, a new class of opportunists has begun to register bogus companies and fabricate invoices required to simulate the import deal, which will then be financed by auction in dollars. In a matter of days, someone who has defrauded their country by the millions, could become the owner of a London country house. The bogus imports left scant evidence, as they were documented with ID cards and photos of real people agreeing to play the role of company officials in exchange for a bribe.  

  

Every time the Central Bank of Iraq or the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suspects, the scammers will adjust their game in return. A former Iraqi banker, one of many former financiers and government officials, told me, "There were small offices run by young men to produce professional counterfeiting business, and then they took care of the entire file."  

 To avoid paying taxes on fake imports, money launderers would register dozens of companies, leave them and create new ones whenever their taxes are due.  

 They involved border crossing authorities, and paid officials to provide them with fake statements with real seals.  

Money launderers ultimately controlled most of the central bank's daily dollar sales, which according to central bank figures totaled more than $ 500 billion since 2003. (This figure is much higher than the actual amount of dollars that were transferred to Iraq from the Federal Reserve, because most The dollars that the central bank sells are electronic transfers from Iraqi oil revenues).  

  

Iranian watermelon and tomato billions of dollars!  

The fraud was evident at times. In 2017, Iraq officially imported $ 1.66 billion worth of tomatoes from Iran - more than a thousand times the amount it imported in 2016. It also listed $ 2.86 billion worth of watermelons from Iran, worth more than $ 16 million from the previous year. These quantities would be unreasonable even if Iraq did not grow large quantities of tomatoes and melons.  

Economists have told me that these official import numbers - which are still visible on the Iraqi Ministry of Planning website - appear to be an attempt to cover poorly for money laundering by auctioning in dollars.  

  

The auction also enabled a large-scale embezzlement scheme that funneled billions of dollars to powerful middlemen in Iraq.  

This fraud was based on the difference between the fixed exchange rate offered by the central bank - which is pegged to the dollar - and the volatile market rate, which is often much higher.  

Shortly after the auction began in 2003, the money launderers realized that if they could rig an import deal, they could then resell the dollars they had obtained from the central bank, making an immediate profit from the price difference.  

 Once Iraqi political leaders realized how much money would be made, they controlled access to the auction.  

 Ordinary businesses and banks wishing to make imports or legitimate borrowings have been kicked out by those who support the main political parties and militias.  

To conceal this takeover, the new plutocrats (wealthy authoritarian class) bought out almost all of the remaining commercial banks, turning them into mere crossings for auction money.  

It's impossible to determine how many billions have been stolen through the exchange rate differential, but many former bankers and Iraqi officials tell me that this type of fraud accounts for most of the alleged imports financed by the dollar auction since around 2008.  

The estimates, based on figures from the Central Bank's website and information from Iraqi bankers and financial officials, indicate about $ 20 billion, all of which were stolen from the Iraqi people.  

Some of the banks making huge profits from the auction are nothing more than fronts, with dilapidated branch offices and hardly any employees.  

A bank bought $ 4 billion at the auction, with a total profit of $ 200 million, "We examined this bank, it had one room, a computer and some guards," said a member of parliament who investigated corruption cases.  

  

The damage from auction fraud wasn't just related to the wrongful profits.  

As Iraqi commercial banks turn into arbitrage tools (with a price difference), normal companies are left without the loans they need to grow. Some legitimate importers, unable to obtain dollars from the auction, were forced to use foreign banks instead.  

 It's hard to know how much damage this did to the economy, but all the analysts I spoke to said it was devastating, starving the country's private sector and making Iraq more dependent on its oil revenues, which have been cut in half in recent months.  

  

'Unwanted hero'  

Only one Iraqi leader made a serious effort to expose the crimes surrounding the dollar auction, and he was an unwelcome hero.  

 Ahmed Chalabi, the banker and politician who helped the Bush administration justify its invasion of Iraq, led a parliamentary inquiry into the dollar auction that began in 2014. It uncovered documents implicating some of the country's largest banks and their owners in widespread fraud.  

While he was expected to uncover more scandals, Chalabi died of a heart attack in November 2015. (Despite the suspicious timing, the autopsy found no evidence of wrongdoing.)  

The bankers Chalabi identified in his investigations have not suffered any consequences and continue to operate.  

  

  

The auction continues to this day, as does the money laundering and theft surrounding it.  

On some days in mid-March, the central bank's website recorded more dollar sales of over $ 200 million - more than $ 1 billion in a single business week - all of you should pay for imports. At the time, the coronavirus pandemic was shutting down the Iraqi economy.  

Some of these imports may be legal, but the bankers I spoke to said the numbers indicated continued widespread money laundering.  

Another stark sign of fraud is the total daily amount of dollars that the central bank sells to Iraqi exchange offices, which are supposed to be used by only Iraqis traveling abroad.  

 In mid-July, average sales were continuing between $ 10 to $ 11 million per day, although Baghdad airport was closed from March until July 23, and travel restrictions remain in place.  

 There is also evidence that the auction continues to provide money to terrorist groups.  

In October, the Federal Reserve Board in New York issued a letter to the Central Bank of Iraq demanding that it prevent two banks and an exchange office from using the dollar auction, indicating that it had reason to believe that the three entities “are affiliated with or involved in material dealings with ISIS or a group with ties to it. The three entities are owned by a financier named Hassan Nasser Jaafar Al-Lami, also known in Iraqi financial circles as the "king of fake bills."  

In January, an employee of the Central Bank of Iraq gave an interview to a Lebanese TV station in which he claimed that Al-Lami was still using the auction, through banks other than those mentioned by the Federal Reserve.  

  

In some cases, the central bank appears to have intentionally defrauded the efforts of the Federal Reserve or the US Treasury.  

In 2018, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Aras Habib Karim, a political figure charged with channeling funds to the Revolutionary Guard and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.  

It also imposed sanctions on the bank it ran, known as Albilad Islamic Bank. But instead of freezing Karim's assets, in October the Central Bank of Iraq ordered the return of 40 million shares in the Albilad Bank owned by Karim and his family, according to a central bank document it obtained.  

 When I asked Treasury officials about the CBI’s work, they made a canned statement: “Treasury continues to work closely with the Government of Iraq on compliance with US sanctions.”  

  

One hit won't suffice  

Iraq is a story of warning and consideration for the rest of the world, illustrating how quickly corruption operations can achieve and how difficult it is to reverse this process.  

It doesn't take long for the dust of collusion to cover nearly everyone, as is the case in Afghanistan, Somalia, or Venezuela.  

 "It becomes a self-sustaining system," says Richard Messick, who spent decades studying the topic and is the number one contributor to an influential blog that monitors global anti-corruption efforts. "You can't take action in one area, because they're all linked together, so you have to change multiple institutions at the same time." ".  

 Difficult to do without outside power, the intervention of the United States government was essential in stemming the rampant graft in Chicago, which reached its peak during the 1920s, when gangster Al Capone was putting the mayor on his payroll.  

 There are few precedents in which cleaning up an entire country of corruption has succeeded in the modern era, with the exception of some authoritarian countries such as Singapore, where former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was heavily repressed in the 1960s.  

  

  

Key card   

The single biggest obstacle to reform in Iraq is the country's overwhelming dependence on cash, which is difficult to track and thus facilitates money laundering.  

Moving more Iraqis into the banking system - where the payments leave a traceable trail - has been a goal of anti-corruption advocates in the country for years.  

But the transition from liquidity is risky in and of itself. New technologies are also vulnerable to acquisition by the oligarchy, who can transform those technologies into more effective tools for laundering money.  

One of the most brazen plans of embezzlement in Iraq provides an almost complete picture of this danger. The use of a device called the Qi Card was intended to push the country towards electronic payments.  

It was developed by a company called International Smart Card, and it allows government employees and retirees to redeem their monthly salaries in cash at any of the thousands of stations across the country. It is a popularly sought-after innovation, before the Qi Card came out in 2007, workers often had to wait in line for hours outside a government bank to get their money.  

The company is now competing with other small card companies, and advertises itself on huge billboards under the slogan "Join the Biggest Family".  

It presents itself as a local tech company that helps usher Iraq into the information age, with pictures on its website of biometric registrations and happy clients making cash payments, but its association with the distribution of state salaries has given it immense leverage.  

In 2019, according to a report from the Central Bank, the government paid nearly $ 47.5 billion for its employees and retirees - a whopping sum for a country the size of Iraq - and most of that went through Qi Card.  

This makes it all the more attractive, as the company appears to be operating almost without supervision, according to the officials I spoke with and documents obtained from the Iraqi Finance Ministry and the central bank.  

It has passed a legal requirement to integrate its payment system with the National Card Payment Network. This would have allowed the Central Bank to monitor transactions.  

 The documents describe frustrated efforts to make Qi Card accountable for its transactions, along with complaints from Iraqi retirees who say Qi Card has been used to withhold their salaries. (The CEO of Qi Card, reached by email, said that the company complies with all relevant regulations and that its transactions are subject to direct monitoring by the central bank, in addition to being reviewed periodically by independent institutions.)  

  

"Aliens in the Popular Mobilization Forces"  

Under this data blackout, the Qi Card is being used by Iranian-backed militia figures who run a massive "ghost staff" (alien) scheme to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in government salaries, several government officials, including one Close to the finance office of the crowd. This official told me that the crowd registered about 70,000 (space) soldiers for electronic payments via Qi Card. (It was unclear if this was done by Qi Card managers or without their knowledge.)  

(Ghost Soldiers) have been a self-financing model for senior officers in the Iraqi army and police for years, but Qi Card appears to have allowed this trick to take to a higher level.  

 The average salary for a crowd member is around $ 1,000 a month, which would make the program earn more than $ 800 million annually. The official told me that this operation was carried out in the strictest confidence by powerful figures with deep ties to Iran, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the militia leader who was assassinated in January with Qassem Soleimani.  

 Qi Card also makes huge profits from the fees it charges for electronic transactions. Another senior Iraqi official told me that some of these profits are being shared with other prominent figures backed by Iran.  

  

The official told me that the founder of Qi Card, a businessman named Baha Abdul Hadi, has stayed away from criticism for years by establishing business relationships with Iraq's most powerful personnel, including militia leaders with close ties to Iran.  

 One of them is Ammar al-Hakim, a prominent Shiite cleric and wealthy politician.  

Another is Cub al-Zaidi, the general secretary of a militia called the Imam Ali Brigades, who was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2018 for his financial dealings with the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.  

 A third link is with Nasr al-Shammari, the leader of another Iran-backed group called Hezbollah al-Nujaba. (But a Qi Card spokeswoman told me Abdul Hadi had nothing to do with Hakim, Zaidi, or Shammari.)  

Meanwhile, Qi Card made efforts to express herself to US officials, some of which seem to have worked.  

 In early 2018, one of Trump's new aides, Max Primorac, suggested to a UN agency that it use the Qi card for transactions, according to a report published in May by ProPublica.  

Primorac was doing consulting work at the time for Markez, an Iraqi-American company hired by Qi Card.  

 ProPublica reported that the United Nations had not contracted Qi Card, but the Primorac offer had raised an ethical complaint by a State Department official. (When asked about the complaint, Primorac responded by sending a note indicating that no investigation had been opened.) He went on to become Assistant Vice President Mike Pence.  

Qi Card's attempts to influence the American American community reminds that corruption can encompass far more than bonuses and tax havens.  

 The 2008 global financial crisis, which exposed suspicious links between politicians and speculators, helped fuel the populist movements that continue to bother Europe that caused the election of Donald Trump, who made corruption an increasingly apt description of our private political life even as he haphazardly uttered the word to his opponents. .  

  

Channel released project  

On a warm February afternoon, I traveled to a construction site in eastern Baghdad called Sadr Al Qanat.  

It is a narrow strip of vacant land - roughly average - that stretches 15 miles between two sides of a major highway on the western edge of the Sadr City slum, with a canal in the middle.  

For years, Baghdad city authorities have spoken of an ambitious project to convert the corridor into a spacious outdoor recreation area, including sports fields, parks, restaurants and playgrounds. Ornate bridges will be built over the canal, as visitors ride back and forth on boats.  

In 2011, the county government signed a contract with three construction companies for approximately $ 148 million.  

Today, the site is a dismal landfill with little evidence that anything has been spent on it.  

Going off the highway on the grass, my feet were soaked with plastic litter.  

I walked back and forth for 20 minutes or so and only found some signs of construction: a cheap pre-made children's playground collecting dust, two incomplete concrete bunkers, in the canal lined with concrete, the water seemed to stink.  

  

Dialogue with a whale!  

It seems that no one knows exactly what happened to the money thrown into the front of the channel, but the report of the Iraqi Integrity Commission points to unfortunately familiar notes: delays, disagreements and a former governor who fled with one of his deputies from the country after "causing intentional damage of more than 12 million dollars," Most of them, presumably, ended up in his pocket.  

 There are projects like this all over Iraq. Abandoned rusting cranes, half mosques and housing projects. Many of them are restricted in legal and political disputes.  

Billions of dollars were spent on electricity, yet Iraq still suffers from power cuts up to 20 hours a day.  

Iraqis use the word "whales" to describe famous businessmen and power brokers who thrive at the expense of their country: "whales." It is widely said that they are above the law. I have been repeatedly warned, while writing this article, that my life will be in great danger if I encounter any of them about their illegal activities. But I finally managed to talk to a whale.  

He was an Iraqi construction giant who told me he spent years paying politicians to get contracts worth millions of dollars. He described a world of backroom deals in which deadly rivalries take part, political alliances are easily transformed and the final currency is "cash, always in dollars, always in advance."  

It was clear that he agreed to graft as a matter of fact, he didn't feel any worries or guilt about it, he had offices and homes in multiple countries, but he spoke the sad Iraqi accent like a man of modest level of education.  

 I got to know him through a government official who met him through a friend. It was impossible for me to verify the details of the stories he told. But it is consistent with everything I've heard from government insiders and bankers about how corruption works at a high level.  

We talked on the phone for about two hours, he told me about one deal he managed, which is a large construction project in which the government has allocated about 40 billion dinars (about 33.6 million dollars).  

"In fact, it only spent about 10 billion dinars on construction. As for the rest, most of it went to government and party officials, along with other expenses. The rest, about five billion dinars ($ 4.2 million), was a net profit."  

  

Provincial council members offer their "services"  

He told me that over the past six or seven years, governors of Iraq's provinces - who wield great power over contracts - have been elected almost exclusively through deals with businesspeople who pay members of the provincial council (who elects the governor) in exchange for a share of the governorate's contracts.  

"Anyone who has money can manipulate these things," he said. The deals were elaborately worded, with Conservative MPs loyal to various political parties splitting the expected returns from inflated contracts. He said a large contract could provide enough commissions to cover the costs of bribing the governor's election.  

Government officials are not merely passive recipients of bribes. He told me that county council members, “are knocking on businessmen’s doors and saying, 'How can we help? Do you have someone you want to bring down? Is there a conspiracy you want to promote? Someone you want to refer to the Integrity Commission?' These dark arts go beyond party loyalty. Money is all that matters. He said, "If you want to conspire against the Dawa Party, the members of the provincial council from this party will cooperate with you" if you pay them.  

  

And he told me that behind all these deals, the militias hide and break into these deals, and take their share of the money. He said, "Any businessman or any bank owner who is not supported by a militia will not be able to work."  

None of this comes as a surprise to the Iraqis. They have become so pessimistic that they now even see the various anti-corruption bodies in the country as tools of extortion and bribery. Unfortunately, this is not a completely unfounded accusation.  

When I was in Baghdad, I went to see Mishaan al-Jubouri, a businessman and politician famous for his anti-corruption statements.  

 Al-Jubouri, a 63-year-old old man with a bald head and prominent eyes, has become an icon of his country's struggle with corruption.  

 He was a businessman in the 1980s and fled the country at the end of the decade to join the opposition. In 2006, al-Jubouri was forced to flee Iraq again after being accused of an elaborate extortion plot that included attacks on oil pipelines.  

But he regained his status, was elected to Parliament and joined the Parliamentary Anti-Corruption Committee.  

  

“Everyone is involved, religious, secular, in villages, in cities, from senior leaders to porters, it has become a culture,” al-Jubouri told me while we were sitting in a house he owned in al-Harithiya.  

  

In 2016, al-Jabouri made headlines around the world by telling a Guardian reporter that he was corrupt as well. He took a $ 5 million bribe from a man who wanted him to drop a fraud investigation. "At least I'm upfront about that," he told the newspaper.  

  

When I saw him in February, al-Jabouri renounced his confession, claiming to have invented the $ 5 million bribery story. I stared at him distrustfully.  

My response: "I needed to shake the community." Such lies are no longer necessary, he added, "The current protests do so."  

  

October demonstrations  

To those watching from another continent, the demonstrations that spread in Iraq's cities last October seemed like a sudden explosion of anger.  

In fact, that anger has been simmering for years in cities and towns across the country. One of the protest leaders I met was Musa, 28, who grew up in a poor farming family in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah.  

 (He asked me not to use his last name because he is still in hiding and afraid of repercussions) like many others I have spoken to.  

 Moussa has repeatedly clashed with the brutality of the gang economy in Iraq, where the real qualifications are often unimportant, and most job offers come with a large bribe price, equivalent to several months' salary.  

After spending five years earning an advanced degree in veterinary science, he was unable to find a veterinary job, except for a one-year contract receiving $ 200 a month, which he was fired after he refused his boss's offer to join a militia.  

He had no choice but to get a job at the Electricity Directorate, which was paying $ 375 a month.  

  

Musa's rebellion began more than two years ago, when he told me that he had found documents indicating that his director at the Electricity Ministry had become rich by taking bribes on government contracts.  

Musa helped organize protests calling for the removal of his boss. Over the course of the following year, he began making contact with other young men across Iraq who had similar experiences and who shared his worries.  

 Many of them believe that their country has become a vassal of Iran and local armed thugs.  

By the summer of 2019, groups of local protest networks were morphing into something bigger. Moussa was among the organizers who called for a national revolution beginning on October 1.  

A week later, he found himself seated on a sofa in front of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Outside the high wooden cabinet doors, the country was on fire. More than 100 people were killed in clashes with police, and the economy was at a standstill.  

 Desperate to restore order, Abdul Mahdi called on Musa and eight other protest leaders to listen. Musa gave him a piece of paper outlining the protesters' demands, which he read quickly and silently. Fighting corruption was one of the demands. After a short dialogue, one of Abdul Mahdi's advisors said, "Give us a list of the most corrupt figures."  

  

Musa told me that he was confused and angry about the request, he already knew that he was wanted for arrest by the security services.  

Shortly thereafter, he will be forced into hiding, like many other protest leaders.  

He also knew that some of the country's most corrupt personalities were greeted on the same sofa.  

 He replied, "This is not our job, this is your job." The atmosphere soured, and the meeting ended after only 10 minutes.  

 The Prime Minister announced shortly after that the protest movement was without leadership. The same may have been said of Abdul Mahdi's faltering government.  

 Less than two months later, faced with wider protests and the death toll rising, Abdul Mahdi announced his resignation.  

  

Militias are on defense for the first time  

The depth and anger of the protest movement surprised everyone. The militias were on the defensive for the first time in years, with some protesters mocking them and calling them an agent of Iran. Some members of the PMF even participated in the movement.  

Someone described to me a tense phone call telling his former boss, "It's a revolt against you."  

In December, the Iraqi parliament passed a landmark law that allows the country's integrity commission to check a public employee's income against his assets and impose heavy fines or even imprisonment if he cannot show a legitimate source for the money.  

 There was a new demand for accountability seeping into all sorts of unexpected places. In Baghdad, I met a young lawyer named Marwa Abd al-Ridha, who took out her cell phone and showed me documents about a strange small scandal at the Iraqi Bar Association, which had made extremely high expenses to build a swimming pool.  

 The fraud was exposed just the day before, before any of the attorneys had a chance to put on a bathing suit. "In the past, there was a lot of spending and no complaints," she said. "Now, the lawyers are speaking out."  

The spirit of the relentless protest movement helped keep it alive - at least until the outbreak of the pandemic - but its impact became limited as months went by, and the protesters vehemently refused anyone nomination for the office. And they seemed to be stuck in a vicious circle.  

 They wanted to change the system, but anyone approaching that system, even on their behalf, immediately became suspicious.  

 Their only heroes are their fellow martyrs, whose faces appear in graffiti and posters all over the protest squares.  

  

At the heart of the protest movement in Iraq is the struggle for liberation from the country's tortured history. Many of the younger generation understand that Iraq - like many other former colonies across Africa and Asia - has often raised its military men and clergy into gods, turning into monsters. This is one of the reasons why the protesters refused to authorize any leader to represent them.  

They know what matters now is the hard work of building institutions, not the idea of lifeguards. But they also crave cool public figures. Like everyone else, they want to be inspired and lead.  

  

Abdul Wahab Al-Saadi  

One of the leaders emerged early in the protests, Abd al-Wahhab al-Saadi is a senior counterterrorism official in Iraq.  

He is loved across the country not only for his military record - he led a series of decisive battles against ISIS - but also because, almost alone among Iraqi officers, he is not partisan, and is said to be uninvolved with corruption and bribes.  

 Last September, the Iraqi prime minister suddenly sidelined him. The protesters quickly considered him a victim who was discarded because he had not been involved in playing the game. (This was partly true, although factional rivalries played a role as well.)  

Protesters began carrying pictures of Saadi chanting his name. Some called for the nomination of Saadi to succeed Abdul-Mahdi as prime minister.  

Al-Saadi's reaction was dramatic, he said, he was a military man who was not qualified to hold a political position. Some demonstrators were disappointed, but others were pleased, seeing his abandonment as a sign of his elevation.  

  

Al-Saadi is 57 years old, with slim features, an air of secluded sobriety and gray hair. Although he is Shiite, the people of Mosul - who are mostly Sunni - consider him the liberator of ISIS, and last year a statue of him was erected there. (The government, which it felt was threatened, removed the statue before it was unveiled.)  

 When I met him in February, Saadi seemed to be regularly enjoying the attention he was getting.  

 He told me about a series of phone calls he received from political influencers, all of whom were hoping to recruit him or gain his support. "The prime minister wants to hire me to gain public opinion," he said lightly as he pulled out a cigarette.  

  

Al-Saadi seemed uncomfortable talking about himself. He has a kind of strict modesty, his hands are often crammed into his pockets, and his gaze is fixed as if he is quietly instituting a field maneuver. For anyone familiar with the morals of Iraqi political figures, Al-Saadi is a watershed.  

And since they are often chock full of affluence, he is lean and whiny.  

 Iraqi politicians often own homes in London and Amman. But Saadi lives in an apartment in Baghdad.  

 I have no evidence that Saadi has never been involved in corruption before. But there are many people in Iraq who want to embarrass him, and no evidence of compromise has emerged.  

He is so immoral that when his son joined the army, he refused to use his private position to help the boy in any way - a level of personal integrity that some of his colleagues deemed unnatural.  

 When I asked him about that, he told me that his father died when he was young, and Saddam Hussein executed his older brother, and he was forced to make his own path. "I never helped him rank, holidays, and perks."  

One Friday evening, I met Al-Saadi at a café called Reda Alwan, in a middle-class neighborhood. We sat at an outdoor table, surrounded by warm drafts of coffee, cardamom and flavored tobacco. He has a tough and silent demeanor, but he relaxed a little when we talked about politics and history, with frequent interruptions from clients who wanted a handshake or a selfie with the hero of Mosul.  

 Al-Saadi gave them a shy smile, and when they asked him if he would play a role in the new government, he would wave to them the non-binding "God willing". (After our meeting, the new Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, reinstated Al-Saadi's promotion.)  

  

Then we tried to leave the cafe. As soon as he stood up, people recognized him on the street, and he was surrounded by a huge crowd of fans. Patience for selfies and shook hands. Cars slowed down to get a look. "Hey, look, it's my sidekick!" I heard someone screaming, a woman started chanting. His bodyguards were looking nervous, but nothing could be done. Everyone wanted a moment with Al-Saadi.  

  

After 15 minutes, he was still a few meters from the cafe, and the street was impassable. A middle-aged man began improvising a rhyme on Saadi and his role in saving Iraq from ISIS, the spectators applauded and were pleased with her. A young taxi driver, dressed in a black galabia, ran his way through the crowd and began to tell al-Saadi that his brother had been killed in the protest square in Baghdad. He thanked Al Saadi for everything he did.  

 A soldier wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest climbed up and began begging Saadi to become the next defense minister. Then a police officer entered, saying, "We want him as Minister of Interior."  

  

I stood in the dark, touched by the sight of those ambitious faces full of hope. All they're asking for are things they take for granted, at least for now: relatively honest employees, clean streets, police officers who don't ask for bribes, they want a state.  

--------  

Robert F. Worth, an American writer and journalist, has covered conflicts around the world, including in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.  

[yota691]

08-09-2020 01:05 PM

Analyst: Most of the private banks in Iraq have interfaces for economic offices affiliated with political parties

 

 

Baghdad / news

The analyst and legal expert, Ahmed Al-Ziyadi, revealed that most of the private banks in Iraq are interfaces for economic offices affiliated with political parties.

Al-Ziyadi said in a post that he said, "In Iraq, what is important is not what he owns! Rather, the most important thing is behind him and who gave him an opportunity to enter the currency auction and whoever provided him with protection."

He added, "With what some do not know that there are 71 private banks in Iraq, most of these banks are the fronts of economic offices affiliated with political parties that carry out their suspicious business through these banks."

 

[nannab]

And they wonder why the people refuse to deposit their money

in any bank.  Thanks Yota  

[justchecking123]

Great article. Informative. 

 

Thanks, Yota.

[southbeach]

28 minutes ago, justchecking123 said:

Great article. Informative. 

 

Thanks, Yota.