James Mattil, who had been Chief of Staff for the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT), says that OAT was set up to “provide assistance, training, and support to Iraq’s anti-corruption agencies.” He says that OAT was under-staffed and had no operating budget, and that whenever OAT tried to implement U.S. policy, “our own officials blocked us.” He says that “corruption and its consequences are the fuel that sustains the insurgency, providing the money, the people and the motivation to fight Americans in Iraq.” (0:56)

 

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Judge Arthur Brennan, who had served in Iraq in 2007 as the Director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency, says in a hearing titled “Have Bush Administration Reconstruction and Anti-Corruption Failures Undermined the U.S. Mission in Iraq?” that the Department of State misled the U.S. Congress, the American people, and the people of Iraq. He also says the Department of State contributed to the consequences of corruption, and that “billions of U.S. and Iraqi dollars have been lost, stolen, and wasted.” (0:46)

 

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In the Democratic Policy Committee hearing “Have Bush Administration Reconstruction and Anti-Corruption Failures Undermined the U.S. Mission in Iraq?” Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said the U.S. government had contributed to the culture of corruption in Iraq, and that corruption involved both Iraqi and American money. This was the fourteenth in a series of oversight hearings to examine contracting fraud, waste, and abuse in Iraq. (more…)

US Army General Livingston, Deputy Commanding General of Combined Security Transition Command, says they are doing very well as far as the security situation is concerned. Corruption is a need for survival. Some people use it to get ahead or to prepare for the next hard time. We have had to remove the need for corruption, he says, by instituting better pay systems in the army and police side by using electronic funds transfers, instituting an Afghan National Security force ID card, and they have eliminated a lot of the methods of corruption, and a lot of needs for corruption. (1:00)

 

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