Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09BAGHDAD1703
2009-06-26 13:27:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Baghdad
Cable title:  

PM MALIKI PUSHES BACK ON PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONING

Tags:  PGOV PREL KDEM IZ 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXYZ0002
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGB #1703/01 1771327
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 261327Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3662
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
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).

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