Losing Iraq, One Truckload at a Time
By LUIS CARLOS MONTALVAN
New York Times
Fort Benning, Ga.
IN 1901, Gen. Leonard Wood, the American governor of occupied Cuba, wrote an incensed letter to President William McKinley after discovering deep corruption in the island’s postal service. “We have gone into Cuba to give these people an example of good government,” Wood insisted. “These thefts in the post office are so far the only blot on our record. Our honor as a nation demands that we bring the thieves to trial.” He gave his commander in chief an ultimatum: “If it is embarrassing to you to have me persist in this matter, I will resign.”
About the only difference between Cuba then and Iraq today is that Wood’s intervention resulted in the jailing of the culprits. The level of corruption in the Iraq Security Forces is staggering. The Iraq Study Group found that $5 billion to $7 billion is lost annually to different types of corruption, and yet “there are still no examples of senior officials who have been brought before a court and convicted of corruption charges.” The result: “Economic development is hobbled by insecurity, corruption, lack of investment, dilapidated infrastructure and uncertainty.”
Yet of the study group’s 79 recommendations, only two are much relevant to this problem, and no anticorruption milestones to be achieved were set forth. Having served in Iraq, I find this very disappointing. While I can’t of course speak officially for the Pentagon, I can describe what I saw and give my own thoughts on how to improve things.
The most prominent forms of corruption I saw were Iraqi commanders pocketing the paychecks of nonexistent troops in the Iraqi Army and officers in the police forces, and customs officials abetting the smuggling of oil and precious rebuilding supplies across Iraq’s porous borders.
These are vast problems, but some relatively simple solutions could tamp them down considerably.
The greatest amount of corruption in the Iraq military and police forces occurs when payrolls are handed out at the unit level. Because the country doesn’t have a functioning banking system that would allow easy money transfers to private accounts, military and security commanders receive large sums of cash every payroll period based on the number and rank of soldiers on their personnel rosters. The endemic problem is that commanders frequently put nonexistent soldiers and security personnel — dubbed “ghosts” by American overseers — on their rosters and pocket their salaries.
(The rest is here.)
New York Times
Fort Benning, Ga.
IN 1901, Gen. Leonard Wood, the American governor of occupied Cuba, wrote an incensed letter to President William McKinley after discovering deep corruption in the island’s postal service. “We have gone into Cuba to give these people an example of good government,” Wood insisted. “These thefts in the post office are so far the only blot on our record. Our honor as a nation demands that we bring the thieves to trial.” He gave his commander in chief an ultimatum: “If it is embarrassing to you to have me persist in this matter, I will resign.”
About the only difference between Cuba then and Iraq today is that Wood’s intervention resulted in the jailing of the culprits. The level of corruption in the Iraq Security Forces is staggering. The Iraq Study Group found that $5 billion to $7 billion is lost annually to different types of corruption, and yet “there are still no examples of senior officials who have been brought before a court and convicted of corruption charges.” The result: “Economic development is hobbled by insecurity, corruption, lack of investment, dilapidated infrastructure and uncertainty.”
Yet of the study group’s 79 recommendations, only two are much relevant to this problem, and no anticorruption milestones to be achieved were set forth. Having served in Iraq, I find this very disappointing. While I can’t of course speak officially for the Pentagon, I can describe what I saw and give my own thoughts on how to improve things.
The most prominent forms of corruption I saw were Iraqi commanders pocketing the paychecks of nonexistent troops in the Iraqi Army and officers in the police forces, and customs officials abetting the smuggling of oil and precious rebuilding supplies across Iraq’s porous borders.
These are vast problems, but some relatively simple solutions could tamp them down considerably.
The greatest amount of corruption in the Iraq military and police forces occurs when payrolls are handed out at the unit level. Because the country doesn’t have a functioning banking system that would allow easy money transfers to private accounts, military and security commanders receive large sums of cash every payroll period based on the number and rank of soldiers on their personnel rosters. The endemic problem is that commanders frequently put nonexistent soldiers and security personnel — dubbed “ghosts” by American overseers — on their rosters and pocket their salaries.
(The rest is here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home