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Maliki-Gate
13.11.2012
By Hiwa Osman
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Ekurd.net |
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November 13, 2012
Those who saw the picture released by the prime
minister’s office of Nuri al-Maliki inspecting
fighter jets by knocking on the metal body of the
plane should not be surprised that he has decided to
halt the deal out of suspicion of corruption.
The picture should have sounded alarm bells for the
Russians, Czechs and people of Iraq. He seemed like
a man shopping for a car in a sales lot, not a head
of state buying strategic weapons. From the start,
the deal did not seem to have been examined well or
to have gone through the proper procurement
procedures.
Former chief of staff Kamaran Qaradaghi told me that
a reliable source in Baghdad said the two sides were
to put their final signatures on the deal during
Maliki’s visit to Moscow.
When meeting with Vladimir Putin, Maliki expressed a
wish for the price to be lowered. Putin replied that
there was usually a margin for that but, as he
understood it, the Iraqi team had already asked for
a lowering of prices on Maliki’s behalf.
The source adds that Maliki wanted names. Putin said
he would send the director of the state-owned
company responsible for the deal. At this point,
Maliki said the deal should be postponed until
further notice.
Maliki is now stuck between two decisions. If he
goes ahead with the deal, it will be clear that some
of those close to him and to the minister of defense
have made a fortune in commission,www.ekurd.net
as his advisor and various political parties have
said.
If he decides to stop the deal, it would be a major
blow to him, not to mention his reputation and his
government’s as businessmen.
Russia Today, the country’s official news channel,
ran a report quoting a Russian military expert
saying “if the deal gets axed, it would be an
unprecedented event in the history of Russia’s arms
trade.”
Igor Korotchenko, the director of the Center for
Analysis of World Arms Trade, adds, “Self-respecting
states and governments don’t act this way.”
Russia’s official news agency RIA Novosti quoted an
unnamed arms expert who warned that Iraq may incur
harsh sanctions over the move: “If the deals were
drawn up in a proper way from a legal point of view,
the Iraqi side may suffer multimillion dollar losses
by paying off punitive fees.”
The expert added that suspected corruption has never
been a legitimate basis for the annulment of
contracts, especially in military-technical
cooperation.
Maliki could turn this fiasco into an opportunity to
regain some of what he has lost with these recent
decisions, he was enticed into a shopping spree,
which demonstrated a clear lack of judgment.
There is an opportunity to reconsider his actions
and clean up his operations by demonstrating that he
is against corruption, wherever it is. He should
allow a truly independent investigation into the
case and depoliticize it.
Events have shown that the main enemy to Iraq, and
the most difficult one to tackle, is corruption. It
is the one phenomenon that crosses all ethnic and
sectarian boundaries. If Maliki decides to take the
matter further, he will find out that there are many
business partners who are on either side of the
political, ethnic and sectarian divide.
He will find that there were people on his trip that
had no reason to be there apart from cutting illegal
deals. This and much more information would be
revealed if a proper independent investigation was
conducted into the case.
If this happens, and Maliki takes responsibility for
errors in judgment and sends those involved to
justice, he could have the legacy of putting the
country back on track and would be able to silence
many of his adversaries. In short, this is a make or
break juncture for him.
In a democracy, the suspected officials named are
usually removed temporarily from their posts pending
the outcome of the investigation. In this case,
nothing has happened yet.
Hiwa Osman is IWPR’s country director in Iraq, previously
served as Iraqi president Jalal Talabani’s media
adviser, a regular contributing writer and columnist for
Ekurd.net. Osman's
website is www.hiwaosman.com
Copyright © 2012 Ekurd.net
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