Iraq: The World's Most Corrupt State

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The upsurge in violence and attacks by anti-U.S. resistance are not the only problems Iraqis need to grabble with.

There are other threats which neither the authorities nor the U.S. occupiers seem to be paying attention to despite their threatening nature.

I am here referring to the numerous reports by credible international organizations on the scope of corruption in the country.

According to these reports, Iraq, in the years since the U.S. invasion, has become the world’s most corrupted state.

It is not hard to find evidence to support the claim. You do not need to be a member of an audit firm or international transparency commission to prove how spread corruption is in Iraq.

Our economy is in chaos because it is being administered by thieves and gangsters.

I know who I am referring to, the people know them, the police have their names, the government has all the evidence to indict them and U.S. troops are aware of them.

But there is not authority to hold them to account. They form a web in which almost everybody with power is involved.

And the victims are ordinary Iraqis whose rulers’ major success has been the embezzlement of public wealth.

Otherwise how come we have not idea about the amount of hard cash entering our treasury through oil sales?

We are being ruled by the world’s mightiest military and technological power and still we do not have meters at oil wells and oil export terminals to tell us how much oil we exactly export.

No one knows how much money we lose but many of our accountants and ministries rely on old-fashioned methods in producing their sheets with some even shunning personal calculators.

A recent report made available to the government and leaked to the newspaper says Iraqi accounts lack transparency and it rarely happens that two sheet even if done by the same department on the same project produces the same figures.

As a result, the report adds, losses of even $1 billion dollars can go unnoticed.

Is there a sane human being who would believe this?

Is there a sane human being who would believe that an oil-rich country like Iraq has no exact idea of the number of barrels it produces or the number barrels it exports at a time a barrel is worth more than 70 dollars.