Corruption pervades government in Basra

[Eugene]

Corruption pervades government in Basra
Islamists faulted amid killings

By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | August 8, 2005

BASRA, Iraq -- The insurgency roiling much of Iraq has not taken hold
in this southern metropolis, where Shi'ite Arabs hold sway and
religious law is firmly ensconced. Basra is facing a different threat:
pervasive, murderous, gangland-style corruption.

News of unsolved killings and vanished public funds vie for attention
in the conservative Shi'ite Muslim heartland, where three rival
Islamist religious parties -- all of which ran for office on a
platform of using Islamic values to root out corruption -- dominate
the provincial government.

On Tuesday night, American journalist Steven Vincent was kidnapped and
killed after he wrote a series of articles denouncing corruption and
accusing police hit squads controlled by Islamic clerics in a rash of
unsolved slayings. Two weeks ago, the deputy governor was killed; the
rumor on the streets of Basra was that he was about to expose
financial improprieties on the provincial council.

"You can't describe it with words, they are so corrupt," said Dr. Adel
Makee al-Yassiry, a cardiothoracic surgeon and deputy director of
Basra's 10-story teaching hospital, describing the Islamist political
parties in the provincial government. "They have militias, and they
will kill those who show documents exposing corruption," he said.
"People are afraid they will be murdered if they expose corruption."

<snip>

More: http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/08/corruption_pervades_government_in_basra/

[acmavm]

1. Does the idiot hiding out in Crawford ever hear about any of this. Or

is he totally sheltered? Or has he fallen off that bicycle a couple too many times and he's become totally incapable of seeing that no matter where you look, who they talk to in Iraq, its another failure.

I've never thought he was running the show in DC. He's too weak intellectually. But doesn't the frigging moran understand that this failure will be attributed to him, not his silent handlers in the background? I suppose not.

[Roland99]

2. Liberty!!

oh wait.