<http://www.indianexpress.com/>
Monday, February 06, 2006 International 'Oil graft fuels insurgency' Corruption A serious threat to Iraq's economic rebirth ROBERT F WORTH & JAMES GLANZ BAGHDAD Iraq, February 5 Iraqi and American officials say they are seeing a troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq's struggling economy. In Iraq, which depends on oil for revenues, the officials say any diversion of money to an insurgency that is harming its citizens and infrastructure is a menace for the country. In one example, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly has been indicted in the theft of millions of dollars meant for protecting a critical oil pipeline against attacks and is suspected of funneling that money to the insurgency, said Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the chairman of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity. The indictment has not been made public. The charges against the Sunni lawmaker Meshaan al-Juburi, are far from the only indication that the insurgency is profiting from Iraq's oil riches. On Saturday, the director of an oil storage plant near Kirkuk was arrested with other employees and police officials, and charged with helping to a mortar attack on the plant on Thursday, a Northern Oil Company employee said. Ali Allawi, Iraq's finance minister, estimated that insurgents reap 40 to 50 per cent of all oil-smuggling profits in the country. Offering an example of how illicit oil products are kept flowing on the black market, he said the insurgency had infiltrated senior positions at the refinery in Baiji and terrorised truck drivers there. This allows the insurgents to tap the pipeline, empty the trucks and sell the oil or gas. "It's gone beyond Nigeria levels now, where it really threatens national security," Allawi said. "The insurgents are involved at all levels." American officials echo that view. "It's clear that corruption funds the insurgency, so you have a real threat to the new state," said an American official involved in anti-corruption efforts. Not all the corruption is related to the insurgency. But American and Iraqi officials say its scale is so broad as to be a serious threat to Iraq's economic rebirth. - The New York Times URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=87350 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
