ANTI-CORRUPTION CONSULTATIONS IN BASRA

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 003109 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/29/2019 TAGS: PGOV KCOR KDEM IZ SUBJECT: ANTI-CORRUPTION CONSULTATIONS IN BASRA REF: BAGHDAD 2154 Classified By: ACCO Joseph Stafford, reason 1.4 (b and d) SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) During November 22-24 visit to Basra, Anti-Corruption Coordinator (ACCO),joined by officers of the Basra Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT),met with judicial officials, the Commission of Integrity's (COI) provincial office director and deputy, and the PRT-supported "Transparency Committee," composed of governmental, media, and civil society reps. Chief Judge Khazal Daboul acknowledged the need for provincial authorities to do more to combat corruption, particularly in the provincial offices of the Trade and Social Affairs and Labor Ministries. An investigative judge and prosecutor pointed to a growing corruption-related caseload; they and COI officials identified a controversial legal provision allowing ministers to block criminal prosecution of employees as a significant obstacle to authorities' anti-corruption efforts. The COI officials acknowledged that only a small fraction of their cases were actually going to trial. Our meeting with the "Transparency Committee" entailed lively exchanges, as media reps called for greater transparency in provincial government operations. The Provincial Council's (PC) Anti-Corruption Committee chairman indicated interest in USG assistance to develop a legally-required provincial gazette. Bright spots in Basra's anti-corruption efforts include the PC's initiative to form the Anti-Corruption Committee and the activities of the PRT-nurtured "Transparency Committee." ACCO extends deepest thanks to the Basra PRT for its superb support of the visit. END SUMMARY. OVERVIEW -------------- ¶2. (SBU) ACCO visited Basra November 22-24 for consultations with officers of the Basra PRT as well as provincial officials and others on corruption issues. As Iraq's second largest city and capital of Basra province, Basra is the southern hub of the Iraqi oil industry and home to the country's only deep-water port, which handles the bulk of Iraq's imports and oil exports. As elsewhere in Iraq, Basra's government institutions are plagued by corruption; recent months have witnessed an array of media reports on abuses ranging from bribery of police officials, to issuance of bogus educational certificates at the University of Basra, to the implication of land registration office employees in falsification of property deeds. Among the Basra PRT's efforts in the anti-corruption field, it maintains an active dialog with the local office of the Commission of Integrity (COI) -- Iraq's lead anti-corruption agency -- and fostered the establishment of a "Transparency Committee" that includes, inter alia, the Provincial Governor's legal advisor, the chairman of the Provincial Council's Anti-Corruption committee, the head of the provincial journalists' syndicate, and local reps of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). JUDICIARY -------------- ¶3. (C) ACCO and Basra PRT officers began their calls on local authorities with Basra Province's senior judicial official, Chief Judge Khazal Daboul, who asserted that corruption was less of a problem in Basra than elsewhere in the country. He maintained that abuses had declined considerably as a result of GOI forces' successful 2008 security operation, dubbed "Charge of the Knights," to subdue the Shia militias that had heretofore controlled many of Basra's government institutions Qheretofore controlled many of Basra's government institutions and that were associated with widespread corrupt activities. (COMMENT: The success of "Charge of the Knights" notwithstanding, our contacts generally portray corruption in Basra -- particularly surrounding the oil sector and the port -- as at least as severe as in other provinces. END COMMENT) Chief Judge Khazal did acknowledge the need for provincial authorities to do more to combat corruption, particularly in the local offices of the Trade Ministry and Labor and Social Affairs Ministry. (COMMENT: These Ministries administer two major nationwide anti-poverty programs, the food rationing program (Public Distribution System),and a cash payment program, (Social Protection Network), respectively, that are widely regarded as rife with corruption. END COMMENT) Asked about the media reports of corruption in the provincial land registration operation, Chief Judge Khazal responded that the problem centered on an area, Abu Al Haseeb, where non-resident Kuwaiti and Saudi citizens held properties; dishonest officials, he explained, attempted to doctor the land deeds so as to claim ownership. ¶4. (C) Our next meeting was with Judge Adel Fathalah, an investigating judge handling corruption cases, and Judge Wathiq Al-Asadi, a prosecutor. The pair indicated that their caseload was growing, saying their offices were currently reviewing 153 corruption cases for possible submission to trial judges for actual prosecution. They indicated that the bulk of these cases had come from the local office of the COI and complained that many of the latter's investigators lacked the expertise to gather the evidence needed for effective prosecution. The upshot, Judge Adel continued, was that many poorly prepared cases reaching his office were simply thrown out or returned to the COI for further investigation. In response to a query, our interlocutors agreed that corruption was a major problem in Basra's security forces, citing, in particular, extortion of bribes from the citizenry. Asked about the role of the local media in covering corruption issues, Judge Adel observed that media coverage was increasing, while lamenting what he saw as "exaggerations" and "lack of balance" in the coverage. Judge Adel went on to identify an obstacle to pursuing corruption cases, the controversial Article 136(b) provision of the Iraqi Criminal Procedure Code authorizing ministers to block prosecution of their employees for corruption and other crimes. He had no precise estimate of the number of corruption cases halted due to ministers' use of Article 136(b),but indicated that the number was significant. (COMMENT: As reported in reftel, Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi announced in August that Article 136(b) had been used in 2008 to block the prosecution of 211 persons on corruption charges; it is likely that action on additional cases was halted simply by the threat of invoking this provision. END COMMENT) COI --- 5.(C) ACCO and Basra PRT officers subsequently met with the provincial COI office director, Kitab Al-Dhay, and his deputy, Hussein Ali Al-Aboudi. Kitab stated that his 64-member staff, including 16 investigators, was insufficient to carry out his mission of investigating reports of corruption, given the size of Basra province. To drive home his point, he stated that COI needed to establish a branch office at the port of Basra to deal adequately with reports of corruption there, but lacked the personnel and budgetary resources to do so. Asked about COI's workload, Kitab said that it was currently investigating close to 600 cases, some originating prior to 2009. He added that so far this year the COI had forwarded another 600 cases to investigating judges, who, in turn, had sent only a small fraction -- about 30 -- to trial judges for prosecution. Kitab pleaded ignorance as to whether verdicts had been issued in the 30 cases, referring us to trial judges for this information. Asked why so few cases had reached trial stage to date in 2009, Hussein mentioned three overall constraints on the COI's ability to have cases prosecuted: (a) the Article 136(b) provision; (b) delays in obtaining the required concurrence of COI's Baghdad headquarters at various stages in the investigative process; and (c) the limited training and Qinvestigative process; and (c) the limited training and expertise of COI's investigators. 6.(C) (COMMENT: Kitab's mention of COI's limited investigative capacity was consistent with Judge Adel's assertion, reported above, about the poor quality of many cases submitted by the COI to investigative judges. END COMMENT) Kitab went on to request assistance from the U.S. and other donors to help the COI build investigative capacity. In response, ACCO and Basra PRT officers briefed Kitab on plans by the Baghdad-based DOJ/ICITAP experts working at COI headquarters to visit Basra in late December to train local COI personnel, as part of a provincial outreach effort. When Kitab asked in a worried tone whether we had vetted the provincial training idea with the COI's national head, Judge Raheem Al-Uqaili, we assured him that we had done so; a relieved Kitab said the DOJ/ICITAP trainers would be welcome. (COMMENT: Judge Raheem has a reputation for exercising rigid control over provincial COI offices, and Kitab seemed genuinely apprehensive at the prospect that his superior in Baghdad might be caught unaware of DOJ/ICITAP's training initiative for Basra. END COMMENT) 7.(C) Asked about links with other government institutions, Kitab said the COI enjoyed generally cooperative relations with the provincial governor's office and the judiciary. However, he stated that ties with other government entities were less satisfactory. Kitab accused the local office of the Board of Supreme Audit (Iraq's equivalent of the U.S. Government Accounting Office) of failing to share information on its audits. He also complained that the COI experienced delays in dealing with the provincial offices of some national ministries. Kitab explained that if the provincial office of a given ministry had no resident representative of the ministry's Inspector General (IG),the COI had to endure what he described as the lengthy and cumbersome process of coordinating with the central IG office in Baghdad on local corruption cases involving that ministry. (COMMENT: The ministries' IGs play a role in the processing of most corruption cases, as they are legally required to initiate corruption investigations involving their respective ministries and forward the findings to the COI to complete the inquiries and submit them to the judiciary for the final investigative phase and prosecution. END COMMENT) Kitab went on to accuse the Anti-Corruption Committee of Basra's PC of attempting to usurp the COI's role by, for example, conducting its own anti-corruption investigations. TRANSPARENCY COMMITTEE -------------- 8.(C) The final meeting was with the Transparency Committee, a body nurtured by the PRT and composed of, inter alia, COI head Kitab, the provincial governor's legal advisor, the chairman of the PC's Anti-Corruption Committee, and representatives of the media as well as civil society. The meeting was characterized by lively exchanges, as the media representatives called for greater transparency in provincial government operations and accused authorities, in particular, of failing to grant them adequate access to information on anti-corruption efforts. Civil society representatives, for their part, acknowledged that Basra's civil society institutions at present were only marginally involved in combatting corruption and needed capacity-building training to play a more effective role. The PC's Anti-Corruption Committee chairman, a Shia cleric, pointed out that the committee, only recently established, was continuing to work up its strategy for overseeing provincial authorities' anti-corruption programs and for promoting transparency and accountability in the PC itself. He expressed interest in the ACCO-funded International Republican Institute's (IRI) project to assist provincial councils to develop the provincial gazettes required under the Provincial Powers Law that took effect following the nationwide provincial council elections held in January 2009. In the meeting, the governor's legal advisor and COI office director Kitab largely confined themselves to pro-forma pledges to strengthen outreach to the media and civil society on behalf of anti-corruption efforts. COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) In Basra, as elsewhere in Iraq, the establishment of an effective anti-corruption regime remains in the early stages. The judicial officials' criticism of the COI's investigative work is a reminder that the latter, established in 2004 under CPA auspices, has a ways to go in terms of capacity-building. The same is true for the corps of IGs, also established in 2004; our discussions highlighted the Qalso established in 2004; our discussions highlighted the need for a greater presence of IG reps in the provinces to facilitate IG/COI coordination. Among the bright spots in Basra's anti-corruption efforts are the PC's initiative to establish an anti-corruption committee and the activities of the PRT-supported "Transparency Committee," which, by bringing together official, media, and civil society actors, has the potential to forge a strong public/private alliance against corruption. END COMMENT. HILL