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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (44277)	5/14/2004 2:40:38 AM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 793954

I reported this stuff to you some while ago. It's all on the CPA website. It doesn't add up to a MacArthur like protectorate. It's a lot more relaxed than that. But... Bremer sees Iraq as having two big concerns: security and corruption. This view coincides with that of most Iraqis. How are they to be dealt with while the new government and constitution are put in place? There has to be a structure. The new Iraqi army is still basically a dream. It takes a few years to produce a decent little army. And there is a five hundred year history of horrifying corruption and attendant tyranny. There is no history of modern government procedure. Things won't stand still while the Iraqis take the necessary time to make their own government - the government functions have to be run and it's not in the interests of Iraq or the US to let things fall into the old way of doing things or be paralyzed, in the meantime What he and the GC are attempting to do is hold the interim government's feet to the fire of clean living. Or, as I've called it before, a regime of equal pain with respect to corruption, as opposed to the previous one of unequal pain. If they really get it going, I imagine it will be wildly popular, and cursed at the same time, depending on whose ox is being gored. It can only work though, if everyone's ox is gored equally. One of the new watchdog agencies, the Office of the Inspector General, will have appointees inside every Iraqi ministry charged with combating malfeasance and fraud. Appointed to five-year terms, the inspectors will be allowed to subpoena witnesses and documents, perform forensic audits and issue annual reports. The other watchdog, the Board of Supreme Audit, will oversee a battery of other inspectors with wide-ranging authority to review government contracts and investigate any agency that uses public money. Mr. Bremer will appoint the board president and his two deputies. They can't be removed without a two-thirds vote of Iraq's parliament, which isn't slated to come into existence until sometime next year. Few of the positions have been filled so far, but officials at the CPA and the Governing Council say they expect to name the new officials within weeks They're going to have to fill these positions before June 30. I don't expect it's going to be easy for them. The success of the venture will depend on the Iraqis. There is no way the US can force them to make it work. BTW, the media regulations specifically say no licence or permission is required to start up any sort of print media.