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Iraq's Culture of Corruption Fuels the Insurgents

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sat Feb 04, 2006 at 04:06:45 PM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock

The "culture of corruption" lives anywhere there is something worth giving or taking, and that includes Iraq. How poor is it when it sits on top of a huge oil reserve? The people maybe; those who control the oil, definitely not.

Our war to bring democracy to Iraq (or was it the War on Terror? I forget. No, maybe it is to control the oil.) is bogged down in part because "troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq's struggling economy," according to Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say, in tomorrow's NY Times.

In Iraq, which depends almost exclusively on oil for its revenues, the officials say that any diversion of money to an insurgency that is killing its citizens and tearing apart its infrastructure adds a new and menacing element to the challenge of holding the country together. In one example, a sitting member of the Iraqi National Assembly has been indicted in the theft of millions of dollars meant for protecting a critical oil pipeline against attacks and is suspected of funneling some of that money to the insurgency, said Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the chairman of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity. The indictment has not been made public.

American ideal$ brought to Iraq.

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    Iraq's Culture of Corruption Fuels the Insurgents | 3 comments (3 topical)
    Re: Iraq's Culture of Corruption Fuels the Insurge (none / 0) (#1)
    by ras on Sat Feb 04, 2006 at 04:27:33 PM EST
    Last Night, Either you're trying to score easy points, hoping no one will fact-check you, or you truly have no idea of the difference between correlation and causation and how to determine which is which. Hint: factor it down to one variable.

    Re: Iraq's Culture of Corruption Fuels the Insurge (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 04, 2006 at 04:44:47 PM EST
    American ideal$ brought to Iraq.
    And French ideals, and German ideals, and Russian ideals, and British ideals, and Chinese ideals. I could go on in on. Lets be honest they are world wide ideals. People are corruptible, and therefore there is some amount of corruption in every government. Actually I will call them UN ideals, Oil for Food, need I say more.

    Re: Iraq's Culture of Corruption Fuels the Insurge (none / 0) (#3)
    by squeaky on Sun Feb 05, 2006 at 06:48:02 PM EST
    BS + ras- You guys are truly living in some tv wonderland. Iraq is a mess, Corruption is rampant and is funding the sunni nationalists. Perhaps it seems like biz as usual seeing that is how your party functions.

    Iraq's Culture of Corruption Fuels the Insurgents | 3 comments (3 topical)