Editorial: Corruption on parade in Iraq

Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

American forces working to create a democracy in Iraq are finding that not all of the insurgents are street-level guerillas and bomb makers. Many of them are working white-collar jobs each day within government and industry.

The New York Times reported Sunday that innumerable Iraqis who have achieved senior management positions are engaged in old-fashioned, greed-driven corruption, as well as the financing of insurgent fighters with the proceeds from oil smuggling and widespread embezzlement of American funds.

In one case reported by the Times, senior managers of an oil refinery were tapping a pipeline and selling the oil or gas on their own - after arranging for attacks on legitimate truck drivers. The newspaper reported another case in which a member of the Iraqi National Assembly stole millions meant for protecting a pipeline. Much of the money gained through this type of corruption is funneled to insurgents, who use it to finance the sabotage of oil infrastructure and to attack fellow citizens and American troops.

Iraq's finance minister, Ali Allawi, told the paper that insurgents are involved at all levels of the corruption and that their activities "really threaten national security." On Tuesday Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed the seriousness of the corruption in testimony before the Armed Services Committee, calling it "corrosive" to democracy.

Since the war began nearly four years ago, 2,257 members of the U.S. military have been killed in Iraq. And by year's end more than $500 billion will have been spent there. For that steep a price, Iraq by now should be capable of guarding itself against the rampant corruption that is fueling the insurgency. That it isn't is one more sign that the Bush administration has botched the reconstruction of Iraq.