[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 77 (Monday, May 12, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4005-S4006]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CORRUPTION IN IRAQ

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to speak about energy and 
respond to a couple of things I heard on the Senate floor and talk 
about what we are going to be doing tomorrow. But first let me say I 
finished 2 hours of chairing a Democratic policy committee hearing in 
which three people testified: two previously serving with the U.S. 
State Department in the country of Iraq, and one, Major General Nash, 
who has a great deal of experience internationally.
  I come away from that hearing after listening 2 hours to some very 
patriotic Americans, Judge Brennan and Mr. Mattil, who talked about 
their experience working for the State Department in Baghdad.
  What I heard was unbelievable--almost unbelievable. They were there 
to try to be supportive of the anticorruption efforts that were 
underway by our Government and by Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who headed the 
Commission on Public Integrity in the country of Iraq. What they told 
me makes me almost furious.
  They told me our State Department--yes, our State Department here in 
the United States--did everything they could to undermine the efforts 
of Judge al-Radhi and the Commission on Public Integrity and the 
section in the State Department that was in Iraq trying to root out 
corruption and support those who were engaged in anticorruption 
activity. Billions and billions of dollars have literally been stolen. 
The witnesses today who worked for our State Department in Iraq told us 
money that has gone through the hands of the Iraqi Ministries, an 
unbelievably corrupt government, ends up in the hands, among other 
places, of the insurgents, which then fuels the war against our 
soldiers. Our State Department, they say in testimony--and I encourage 
people to write to us and get a copy of this testimony--they say our 
Government and those in charge in Baghdad not only did nothing about 
it, but tried--because the Iraq Government, full of corrupt Ministries, 
was upset with the Commission on Public Integrity investigating them--
it was our Government that decided to be helpful to throw Judge al-
Radhi out of that country.
  This is a man whom they tried to kill. They didn't like him 
investigating corruption in Iraq so they tried to kill him. Yet our 
Government paved the way for the Iraqi Government to get rid of him, to 
throw him out of the country.
  On Thursday of this week we are going to write a bill in the 
Appropriations Committee. I believe the President asks for $172 
billion--that is with a ``b''--$172 billion additional, mostly for the 
war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question is, how much of that $127 
billion going through our Defense Department and then coming into the 
Iraqi Ministries, how much of that is going to be wasted? How much of 
that is going to stick in the hands of corrupt officials in the country 
of Iraq?
  If we could dye that money purple and track it through those who 
stuff it in their pockets in Iraqi Ministries and then pass it along to 
the insurgents as part of the take, who would we see stealing this 
money from the American taxpayers, and who would we see undermining the 
work, every day, of soldiers in Iraq?
  We can't leave the country of Iraq, we are told by this 
administration, until there is stability. There is not going to be 
stability until we address the issue of corruption. As long as we will 
turn a blind eye to corruption--which two people from the State 
Department who worked in Iraq told us today--as long as we turn a blind 
eye to corruption, which has been done; as long as we betray--yes, 
betray--those who were standing up in Iraq and risking their lives to 
get rid of corruption, we don't stand a chance of making an inch of 
ground in Iraq. In fact, the witnesses today said the Special Inspector 
General in Iraq, in reporting to us, the Congress, and the American 
people about progress made in routing out corruption, that Special 
Inspector General was given information from those in charge in our 
Government in Iraq that was inaccurate because those responsible for 
providing the information sent the right information to the Inspector 
General and then it was pulled back by the State Department and they 
sanitized it and rewrote it to give a completely different message.
  We are not even getting the truth. We are being deceived. I want 
everyone to read the testimony that came today from Judge Brennan and 
others and understand what is happening.

[[Page S4006]]

  As we start on Thursday on this issue of whether we are going to 
provide another $172 billion, we ought to understand how much of that 
money is being stolen, how much of that money is going to actually 
support the insurgency, and what is being done about it. I am going to 
send letters, as a result of the hearing that I and my colleagues held 
today, to officials in the State Department, to Secretary Rice, and 
others demanding to know what she knows and what they know and who is 
doing something about this and demanding accountability from those in 
the State Department relative to the testimony that was given today.
  Mr. President, I didn't come to talk about that, but I just came from 
chairing that hearing for 2 hours. It is an unbelievable tale that is 
very distressing and very disappointing and just cries out for action 
by the Congress and action by the President and this administration.

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