Why won't Paul Bremer let Iraqis investigate the Oil for Food scam?
Bigfooted in Baghdad
WSJ.com
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Most Iraqis remain grateful to America and its coalition partners for liberating them from Saddam. But anyone wondering why they so eagerly await the June 30 handover of sovereignty should consider the flap over how to investigate the U.N.'s corrupt Oil for Food Program.
Saddam's bureaucrats, it turns out, kept meticulous records of this epic bribery scheme. And the Iraqi Governing Council, understandably eager to expose those guilty of defrauding their country, launched an investigation some months ago. Yet in the middle of this probe, coalition regent L. Paul Bremer muscled in to wrest control of it from the Iraqis. Alas, this has been all too typical of Mr. Bremer's reluctance to let Iraqis take more responsibility for their own governance.<font size=3>
The IGC probe is without question a serious effort. Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a former PriceWaterhouse executive of impeccable credentials, has been working as an adviser to the Council, which hired KPMG auditors and the law firm of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to pore over program-related documents. The KPMG team has made a number of trips to Iraq, and Mr. Hankes-Drielsma has testified before Congress on the matter. There's a lot more to find out, as Claudia Rosett's latest dispatch suggests.
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But somewhere along the line Mr. Bremer decided to redo the audit tender, and last week the Coalition Provisional Authority announced it had hired Ernst & Young to do the investigation. No offense to the skills of Ernst & Young, but we can find no rationale for this move to scrap months of work other than delaying the Oil for Food investigation at a politically sensitive time when Mr. Bremer and other members of the Bush Administration are trying to enlist U.N. help in Iraq.
That's certainly how Mr. Hankes-Drielsma sees it: "This new investigation (which is being paid for by the Iraqi people) is a smokescreen--it is clearly politically motivated and has the purpose of creating confusion and further delay." We should add that when we called the CPA about this a while back, a spokesman gave us false information about the nature of the audit tender the CPA had requested, saying the IGC would remain in control.
Such controlling behavior has been sadly typical of Mr. Bremer's tenure, even when there aren't upcoming Security Council votes at stake. Sources tell us he asked the IGC to delay word of its deal on the interim constitution, and sure enough he himself later made the main announcement. The absence of an Iraqi face at the daily Baghdad press briefings held by Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt and CPA spokesman Dan Senor has also been notable, and has contributed to the image that this is just an "occupation."
The issue of an Iraqi "face" is key. Mr. Bremer appointed the Governing Council but then gave it far too little tangible or even symbolic power. Had its members been given more de facto control over day-to-day affairs for the past year, we're guessing there would have been less pressure for the de jure sovereignty handover that will now have to precede any legitimizing Iraqi elections.
On Monday Izzadine Saleem, who held the rotating Presidency of the IGC, became its second member to be assassinated. The leaders who've been working with the U.S. to build a new Iraq have taken real risks, and they have shown wisdom and competence in drafting the Middle East's most liberal constitution and economic laws. They also assembled the one unit of the new Iraqi Army--the 36th Battalion--that can currently be counted on to fight.
They deserve more respect than both Mr. Bremer and the antiwar press have so far accorded them.
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