Long War Journal - UN Corruption & Iraq

UN = Corruption? No way!

Iraq's culture of corruption stems from the actions of the international community and the controversial UN oil-for-food scheme, the deputy prime minister Barham Saleh said on Thursday.

Speaking at a new anti-corruption forum in Baghdad, Saleh said that the programme, run between 1996 and 2003 while Iraq was under UN sanctions, and what he charged was the body's wasteful use of money were to blame for the rampant corruption that bedevils Iraq.

"A large responsibility for the outbreak of corruption in Iraq lies on the international community," said Saleh.

"The scandals of food-for-oil and the wasting of public riches by the UN... is evidence of the serious damage that has deepened the problem in the country."

For seven years before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the oil-for-food programme allowed Baghdad -- which was under a punishing trade embargo since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 -- to sell oil in return for cash to buy food and medicine.

Meanwhile two weeks ago the ninth of 18 Iraqi provinces was transferred to complete Iraqi control. The tenth appears to be the Ninewa province, which should be turned over by March and then Anbar by May. According to plan the last province will be turned over by August of 2008, which will be Baghdad.

DJ at The Long War Journal also reports that more Kurdish troops are being integrated into the Iraqi army, and the MSM is ignoring it:

The integration of Kurdish Regional Force into the Iraqi Army continues largely under the radar of press reporting. While two IA battalions (3-1-3 and 3-2-3) returned to Ninewa from their Baghdad deployment, negotiations for the transfer of two Peshmerga Divisions to the IA started. The Peshmerga and Badr Brigades have been authorized to join Iraqi security forces while Jaish Al-Mahdi has been specifically banned from joining. Also in the north, the former Strategic Infrastructure Battalions are planned to finish retraining and re-equipping by the end of 2008.

Why would they want to report the integration of the various sects inside Iraq? Not like that is news....