Also Sunday, Iraqi police announced the arrest of trade minister's brother, who was wanted along with several other officials for allegedly embezzling some $7 million from the country's ration program.
Sabah al-Sudani was caught by police Wednesday in southern Iraq carrying large amounts of cash and two passports, in what the government is describing as an attempt to flee the country.
When the security forces first tried to arrest him and other suspects on April 29 in Baghdad, guards at the Trade Ministry opened fire, allowing them to escape.
The incident was embarrassing for the government, which has been begun responding to the rising public outcry against corruption. Al-Maliki called Saturday for a new campaign against corruption.
Corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Iraq in 2008 as the third most corrupt country in the world after Somalia and Myanmar.
But the Iraqi government has long downplayed the corruption riddling the country's ministries and hamstringing its reconstruction efforts after years of war.
I wonder where the United States stands on the list of corruption riddled nations?
If one were to follow Obama's "stimulus spending" I am sure the United States would move right to the top of the list.
If we really knew the truth about how our tax-dollars are being stolen through corruption we would likely find it would be enough money to finance a pretty darn good health care system.
It's like Minnesota's former socialist Farmer-Labor Party governor Elmer Benson always used to tell me:
"If you ended corruption in this country the entire goddamn capitalist system would collapse overnight and we wouldn't need a revolution."
Then there is this statement in the article below from Associated Press:
"A fierce critic of the U.S.-led Iraq war, Pelosi originally opposed the 2007 increase in U.S. troops credited with contributing to a substantial reduction of violence in much of country in the past two years."
Nancy Pelosi, a "fierce critic" of this war? Come on; get real. Pelosi and the Democrats haven't done a darn thing to end this dirty imperialist war for oil and regional domination in Iraq. As far as corruption. Corruption is part and parcel of imperialist wars because the wars are a corrupt business venture from the beginning... there isn't anything too honest about stealing another country's oil. And Nancy Pelosi is as corrupt as politicians get; one only has to look at the corporations she gets her bribes (campaign contributions) from.
Notice, the article doesn't mention if Pelosi discussed corruption with the U.S. installed puppet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
And if Iraq is "riddled with corruption," just imagine what kind government it must be in Afghanistan among the poppy growers; or, what about corruption in Pakistan?
And it's all your tax-dollars!
And this country can't afford socialized health care?
Come to think of it this health care system we have in this country must have its share of corruption, too--- don't ya think? How else could it be that only the insurance companies get a seat at Obama's table when it comes to health care reform?
Where's the change?
Here in Minnesota we don't have to look far for corruption... A Roseau County Commissioner who is spending our tax-dollars pleads guilty to tax-evasion and the Tea Party people don't even demand his resignation; every single state legislator is on the "to bribe list" of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association; and the Ford Motor Company has been bribing Minnesota politicians for over 80 years while the St. Paul City Council appoints an heir to the most crooked and corrupt real estate family in Minnesota history to make plans for the real estate speculators to make a killing from killing off two-thousand jobs when Ford closes the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the corruption riddled Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party spends twenty-million dollars--- tax-payer dollars--- building a road out into the Big Bog for a Berger, Ltd., a Canadian multi-national corporation, to truck away the profits as our primary freshwater aquifer is destroyed after the Berger family of Quebec holds a party in Mike Hatch's Attorney General Office for all those they have bribed with Lori Swanson serving the h'orderves. And in the center of it all is good old honest Democrat James Oberstar who stands in front of two-hundred people at the Freeman Forum on "Water, Water everywhere" and calls me a liar for stating that he is involved in the peat mining boondoggle in the Big Bog as the Blandin Foundation tells public radio station KAXE they will lose their funding if they mention this corrupt peat mining fiasco.
With a government imposed by the United States on the people of Iraq, how can that government be anything but corrupt... after all, the whole idea was to export our system of government to Iraq... a thoroughly corrupt form of government... only a complete fool would think that there would be any chance of anything other than a corrupt government in Iraq considering who is teaching these Iraqi politicians--- the most well bribed politicians in the world... politicians like Nancy Pelosi. They should send Jim Oberstar over to Iraq to teach them how to take bids for roads and bridges:
Give the Democrats a few bucks to spend on a bridge or a war and it will turn in to a corruption riddled fiasco and disaster with the bodies piled high or laying in the bottom of a river.
Something to think about around the dinner table.
Alan L. Maki
US House speaker Pelosi in Iraq discusses economy
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20090510/D983ASC80.html
May 10, 6:36 AM (ET)
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise one-day visit to Baghdad Sunday and discussed U.S.-Iraqi economic relations with the prime minister, the government spokesman said.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked Pelosi, a California Democrat, to shield Iraq from the demands for reparations from neighboring countries dating back to the actions by the previous ruler Saddam Hussein, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
"Al-Maliki requested the United States protect Iraqi funds and put an end to the demands of other countries which feel they were harmed during the two Gulf wars of the former regime," he added.
Kuwait still claims billions of dollars in war reparations from Iraq dating from the 1990 invasion and has refused appeals by Baghdad to reduce their demands and forgive about $15 billion in Iraqi debt.
A fierce critic of the U.S.-led Iraq war, Pelosi originally opposed the 2007 increase in U.S. troops credited with contributing to a substantial reduction of violence in much of country in the past two years.
She has praised President Barack Obama's plans to bring home two-thirds of the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by August 2010.
In the past, Pelosi has pushed the Iraqi government to make greater efforts at political reconciliation.
Pelosi last visited Iraqi in May 2008, when she also met with al-Maliki, and came in January 2007, shortly after Democrats took control of Congress.
Also Sunday, Iraqi police announced the arrest of trade minister's brother, who was wanted along with several other officials for allegedly embezzling some $7 million from the country's ration program.
Sabah al-Sudani was caught by police Wednesday in southern Iraq carrying large amounts of cash and two passports, in what the government is describing as an attempt to flee the country.
When the security forces first tried to arrest him and other suspects on April 29 in Baghdad, guards at the Trade Ministry opened fire, allowing them to escape.
The incident was embarrassing for the government, which has been begun responding to the rising public outcry against corruption. Al-Maliki called Saturday for a new campaign against corruption.
Corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Iraq in 2008 as the third most corrupt country in the world after Somalia and Myanmar.
But the Iraqi government has long downplayed the corruption riddling the country's ministries and hamstringing its reconstruction efforts after years of war.
__
Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.
