Among the weeping jokes and what the bereaved laugh about is the corruption and immorality of the Iraqi parties and their black militia arms soaked in the creamy Iranian poison that they sucked from the breast of their old witch, Iran, with black fangs dyed with the hatred of the mullahs, and the verses of backward Iranian paganism, which was not satisfied in Iran until it was exported to Iraq and the region. The story begins the day after a criminal court in Baghdad issued a six-year prison sentence to a deputy in the Iraqi parliament for taking a bribe. The deputy is part of the National Wisdom Movement, which is led by the Shiite cleric Ammar Al-Hakim. On Wednesday, Ammar Al-Hakim put out a statement questioning the “legal procedures.” The “Integrity Commission” arrested a member of parliament, Mahmoud Mulla Talal, last month, during a “tight ambush”, and he was convicted of taking a bribe from a company linked to the Ministry of Industry. Raad Hashem, an Iraqi affairs researcher, sees this as an “ear pinch” for the entire National Wisdom Movement and other more powerful political blocs, even though the deputy is already convicted in the bribery case.
The presence of the highest-ranking Iraqi figure to be imprisoned in his presence is among dozens of arrest warrants for officials accused of corruption, issued recently after popular pressure and anti-corruption demonstrations in the country. About 460 people were killed across Iraq as a result of the authorities’ repression of demonstrators in the context of protests calling for a change in the political class, which has monopolized power for 16 years and is accused by the street of causing widespread corruption and nepotism. “Where is the Integrity Commission regarding corrupted parties?” Even though the streets of Iraq have been in chaos since October 1st, Hashem says that “corruption issues are selective” because they only look into small corruption cases and ignore big corruption cases involving leaders of parties with militias. He pointed out that what is happening is for the purpose of settling scores between the political blocs, which all have corrupted representatives and leaders. He explained that all parties have economic offices that they use in ministries and governorates to finance their budgets before the militias enter the line. And he added, “The Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia has a party called the Al-Sadiqoun Bloc, and the Shiite Badr Organization is the Badr political party, as well as Jund al-Imam has a political party.” All of these corrupted political parties have defrauded the law in the ministries and governorates, especially the liberated governorates that are still dominated by militias such as Mosul, Anbar, and Salah al-Din.
Among the major corruptions committed by the Al-Sadiqoun Bloc, which is affiliated with the Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq militia led by Qais Al-Khazali, Hashem wonders: “Why do they not investigate Al-Khazali about what his militia carried out in 2016 to steal the Baiji refinery, when they claimed that they liberated it from ISIS and then sold it, disassembled, to Iran at the lowest price?” For crimes involving abuses of human rights, Qais Al-Khazali was placed on the US sanctions list. According to an Iraqi government official, the story of the collection of huge funds by Qais Al-Khazali and his brother Laith Al-Khazali began after Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq took control of areas of Salah al-Din Governorate, the city of Mosul, and parts of the city of Kirkuk, following its liberation from ISIS in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The two Khazali brothers, through their combat brigades that fall under the wing of the Popular Mobilization Forces represented by the 41st, 42nd, and 43rd brigades, took control of oil fields, made holes in oil pipelines, and stole the oil and sold it to tanker companies that smuggle it through the Kurdistan region and out of Iraq. In order to ensure that the Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq militia stayed in the oil fields under the guise of maintenance, some officials in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil cooperated with the militia by shifting oil cleaning and maintenance contracts to oil trading and service companies owned by militia members. This happened in the Alas fields and some fields in Kirkuk, Mosul, and Salah al-Din, and the companies affiliated with Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq were also awarded a huge contract to give them 10 percent of the profits of a company contracting with the Ministry of Oil that transports Iraqi oil, which injected millions of dollars into the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia. Expert on Iraq Raad Hashem confirms that Al-Khazali’s Shiite militia, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, still controls contracts and deals in the Baiji refinery and the whole Salah al-Din Governorate.
Among those accused of corruption in Iraq, who are far from being held accountable, is the Al-Ataa bloc, which is affiliated with the head of the Popular Mobilization Committee, Faleh Al-Fayyadh. The Al-Ataa bloc controls many suspicious positions, contracts, and deals, especially in Mosul, and no one is filing an anti-corruption lawsuit against it. Whoever wants to eliminate corruption must choose issues that concern everyone, and not be selective and use the judiciary to settle scores.
One of the most important files on corruption is the files of major corruption cases during the era of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who led the Dawa Party. Al-Maliki and his party obtained millions of dollars through fake projects that had no basis in reality. No one dared to open an investigation into the corruption files related to military armament deals during the Al-Maliki era, which witnessed bribery and money laundering, as well as licenses for developing and producing oil fields and leasing oil and gas fields that mortgaged the energy products for decades.
Hashem said the reason for not involving parties and militia leaders in corruption investigations and the Integrity Commission is that “these parties and militias are influential and possess weapons, and no one is able to confront them or eliminate them.” Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi shares the same traits as the leaders of the parties that brought him to power, which the protesters accuse of failing to provide jobs and services and of filling the pockets of officials with money obtained through corruption, which was the cause of the evaporation of more than 450 billion dollars in 16 years, according to official figures. The prime minister is a corrupt figure. Iraq is ranked 12th among the world’s most corrupt countries, and this scourge has resulted in a decline in infrastructure that has not developed over the last 15 years, particularly electricity and water.