PM MALIKI PUSHES BACK ON PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONING

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 001703 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/24/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ SUBJECT: PM MALIKI PUSHES BACK ON PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONING REF: BAGHDAD 1396 Classified By: Charge Robert S. Ford for reasons 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Relations between Prime Minister Maliki and parliament's Sunni leadership have improved in recent weeks but remain cool. Responding to what he saw as a political campaign to weaken him after gains in the provincial elections, Maliki has sought to change the rules of the road for hauling ministers before the parliament. Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish parliamentarians claim he threatened caucus leaders with retaliation if parliament persisted in summoning his ministers. President Talabani has also supported a halt or at least changing the rules to questioning, although a senior aide to Talabani told us Maliki had threatened to pursue corruption charges against Kurdish ministers if the questioning continued. The PM's senior advisor acknowledges that Maliki has asked parliament to lay off questioning his ministers, but described it as an appeal to statesmanship, not threat or intimidation. Oil Minister Shahristani nonetheless appeared before parliament on June 24, and he seems to have fared much better than Trade Minister Sudani. End summary. -------------- A New Day in Parliament -------------- ¶2. (C) Members of parliament from across the political spectrum have told us they welcome the leadership of Dr. Ayad Samara'ie, the Sunni (Iraqi Islamic Party) politician elected speaker in April after a four-month stalemate. Samara'ie, according to many MPs, has put a special emphasis on legislative professionalism and in carving out a broader oversight role for the parliament. Probably the most tangible manifestation of this new assertiveness has been parliament's summoning of cabinet ministers to answer questions and account for their records in office. ¶3. (C) The summoning last month of Trade Minister Abdel Falah al-Sudani (reftel) proved humiliating for the Minister, who was unable to provide cogent answers in the face of sharp questioning by parliament's integrity commission about allegations of corruption and mismanagement in his office and the Ministry as a whole. In the aftermath of the session, Sudani stepped down from his post and, in an incident that made international headlines, was even briefly detained by the GOI after the plane carrying him out of Iraq was turned around after take off. (Some Iraqis, ever suspicious, believe Sudani quietly slipped into Syria a few days later, although GOI Commission for Integrity sources insist to the Embassy that he remains in country.) -------------- Maliki Gets his Back Up -------------- ¶4. (C) Sudani's resignation was hailed in the Arab and international media as an all-too-rare moment of accountability for a corrupt senior government official. Yet the episode angered Prime Minister Maliki. Maliki did not support Sudani but he viewed the questioning by members of the Fahdila party (who he views the most corrupt of all) as evidence of a political campaign focused on showmanship rather than cleaning up the ministries. Recent conversations with members of several different parliamentary blocs indicate that the Prime Minister has continued to work to prevent a repeat of the Sudani debacle with more established ministers, in particular Oil Minister Husayn Shahristani. (Sunni) Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) MPs Omar al-Karbouli and Salim Jabouri each told us this week that Prime Minister Maliki had warned IIP bloc leader Osama Tikriti in a mid-June meeting that he would "open the gates of hell" if parliamentarians persisted with plans to summon Ministers. Qparliamentarians persisted with plans to summon Ministers. ¶5. (C) Shi'a members of parliament corroborate that Maliki threatened retaliation, though their account of the exchange is less dramatic. Shi'a independent MP Qassim Dawood said that Maliki told the bloc leaders he would refrain from investigating corruption cases against members of parliament in exchange for a moratorium on questioning his ministers. Daoud worried that MPs could be tarnished for seemingly misusing their personal security stipend -- that is, pocketing some of the money rather than using it for bodyguards. A senior parliamentary staffer told us he had heard the same account of the meeting from Shi'a independent Shatha Musawi. ¶6. (C) Saleh Mutlak, leader of an 11 seat Sunni bloc, also told us that Maliki has been using a threatening tone lately. Similarly, IIP parliament members Karbouli and Jabbouri each told us they believed the Prime Minister might direct the GOI to arrest them on trumped up terrorism charges, or, noting the June 12 assassination of fellow IIP MP Harith al-Ubaidy, even assassinate them, if they were too aggressive in challenging the Maliki regime. ¶7. (C) Parliament Speaker Samara'ie told Charge on June 20 that questioning of ministers would resume after a pause. He claimed to have felt threatened by Prime Minister Maliki; he said the implicit Maliki threat to arrest IIP members if Samara'ie did not halt the questioning of Ministers was clear. Samara'ie said at the same time that many parliamentarians wanted to call in Oil Minister Shahristani and others. Samara'ie indicated he would seek to go forward with meetings at the parliament of deputies and ministers, without, he hoped, full scale confrontations erupting. -------------- Talabani Recommends Lowering the Volume -------------- ¶8. (C) Kurdish contacts report that even President Talabani has been coerced into supporting an end to questioning. Talabani's senior advisor Jalal Al-Mashta, who attended a mid-June meeting between the President and the Prime Minister, told us Maliki threatened to pursue corruption allegations against Kurdish cabinet ministers, starting with Foreign Minister Zebari, if the president did not support a halt to the investigation of ministers. A group of Kurdish MPs echoed this account to poloff on June 21, adding that what had really influenced Talabani was Maliki's threat to expose the alleged corruption of outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, the front-runner in the race to assume the leadership of the Kurdistan Regional Government later this summer. ¶9. (C) Talabani himself told us the parliament should continue its oversight function but it had to do so in a "professional" and respectful manner. He therefore recommended to the Political Council for National Security (the PCNS - which groups all of major political leaders) that a small closed committee be formed to initiate questioning more discreetly. If serious evidence of wrongdoing arose, the minister could resign, or be called before the full parliament. This proposal did not prevail, but Talabani's advisor told us an agreement was reached whereby the questioning would slow down with broad discretion and latitude given to Speaker Samaraie (according to the Speaker's account) to manage the process and ensure it was handled professionally. -------------- Prime Minister: Avoid Politicizing -------------- ¶10. (C) Sadiq Rikabi, senior aide and confidante to PM Maliki, in two separate June meetings with emboffs, acknowledged that the Prime Minister had been asking parliamentarians to lay off questioning for the time being. However, Rikabi adamantly denied that Maliki had resorted to threats or intimidation. Rikabi acknowledged that relations with the parliament had been difficult recently, and said that the PM had worked hard to reduce tensions between the government and parliament, and the PM planned to meet with bloc leaders every two weeks to keep communication open. He said the PM would also convene the PCNS regularly and meet the Presidency Council often. ¶11. (C) Rikabi also told us the PM was aware that many parliament members pocketed funds intended for security, but claimed Maliki did not want to release such information given the fragility of the parliament and other Iraqi institutions. "This is a time to strengthen the institutions, not hollow them out from within." He also pointed to Maliki's restriction of the use of Article 136(b) of the Iraqi Criminal Code (which allows ministers to shield employees QCriminal Code (which allows ministers to shield employees from prosecution for corruption) as evidence that Maliki is committed to transparency, as well as Maliki's personal release of his financial information. Maliki felt he would have no choice but to release derogatory information on COR members, and pursue corruption cases, if the COR went after him and his government, according to Rikabi. ¶12. (C) Rikabi told us that the PM had encouraged bloc leaders to keep up their anti-corruption campaign, but to do it "as statesmen, not in a way to earn political points against each other." The PM had encouraged them to set up the questioning of ministers and officials in a quieter way, without media, Rikabi stated, adding that the PM told MPs that he had ordered the arrest of 70 corrupt officials across the GOI, but did not publicize the action, so as not to embarrass the ministries and cause resistance. He also said that given Iraq's many challenges it was not the time to make accusations in the media against one another - keep accusations in private, and in regular meetings. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (C) We can't exclude the use of hyperbole and embellishment in some of our contacts' accounts, but we nonetheless believe they accurately reflect the perceptions and paranoia that drive much of the decision making in Iraqi politics. The Prime Minister has a point: Fadhila is thoroughly corrupt; it's management of the Oil Ministry under the Ja'fari Government was known to be rotten. Whether that justifies Maliki threatening retaliatory investigations, or arrests, of more Iraqi Islamic Party members is a different and worrisome question. ¶14. (C) In spite of Maliki's efforts, whether by friendly lobbying or through threats of retaliation, parliament did "host" Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani on June 24. (Interestingly, this took place in the absence of Parliament Speaker Samara'ie, who is on an official visit to Egypt.) Shahristani seems to have fared much better than Sudani, holding his own in the face of pointed questioning, and firing some zingers back at the MPs. It is possible that Shahristani's relatively able defense of his ministry and the government before parliament may allay Maliki's fears of the extent of the political threat to his regime posed by parliament's newfound assertiveness. Notably, the Kurds and the Shi'a Fadhila party (both long-term rivals of Shahristani) were the most assertive toward Sharistani, not the Sunnis. What is certain is that, like all issues here in this election year, corruption allegations will be used by all sides for advantage and political gain, whether fair or not. End comment. FORD