I’ve always thought that the Oil-For-Food scandal and the parallel scandal (promoted mainly on the left of the blogosphere) about corruption in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction were overblown. Under the circumstances, corruption was inevitable in both cases. If you supported feeding Iraqi children or attempting to repair the damage caused by the war, you had to expect, as part of the overhead, that those with power in Iraq would seek to skim money off the top, and that they would find willing accomplices in this task. Having said all that, corruption shouldn’t be passively accepted. It’s a crime and, wherever they can be caught, those guilty of it should be punished.
By far the biggest fish to be caught in the net so far is Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter, AWB, which was, until 1999, the government-owned Australian Wheat Board. It has become evident that AWB paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Saddam’s regime, and it has now been stated in evidence that the deals in question were discussed with Australia’s foreign minister, Alexander Downer., who has played a leading role in defending Australia’s participation in the Iraq war.
Based on past experience, particularly the Children Overboard case, we can be pretty confident of the following
* Both Downer and Australian PM John Howard knew that the AWB was paying kickbacks to the Iraqi regime
* This information was transmitted in a way that preserves deniability, so no conclusive proof will emerge
* No government minister will resign
* Endless hair-splitting defences of the government’s actions in this matter will emerge from those who have previously made a loud noise about Oil-for-Food.
“Gandhi” has a bit more
{ 10 comments }
fifi 01.17.06 at 6:53 pm
It’ll all be worth it if we can save baby Noor.
roger 01.17.06 at 9:51 pm
Usually, I like reading John Quiggin. But this comment seems very silly:
“If you supported feeding Iraqi children or attempting to repair the damage caused by the war, you had to accept, as part of the overhead, the fact that those with power in Iraq would seek to skim money off the top, and that they would find willing accomplices in this task.”
Which is like saying, if you support urban conurbations that will support museums and galleries, you have to accept, as part of the overhead, an elevated percentage of murders per year.
I don’t have to accept the fact (if that means something like, not get indignant) that American contractors have skimmed millions and perhaps billions from Iraq’s construction funds. Cities should fund police departments. The U.S. Justice department should prosecute corrupt contractors. And my Epictetus like sense that fate will have its way is particularly disturbed when I read about cases like Custer Battles, in which the U.S. government actually has excellent evidence that the company skimmed money through sham corporations and decided not to prosecut because the CPA, the injured party, was not part of the U.S. Government.
John can take the long view — I’ll stick with the redneck feeling that criminal monkeys with power in D.C. should be investigated, prosecuted, and jailed to the full extent of the law.
John Quiggin 01.17.06 at 10:26 pm
Roger, to clarify my point, the question is whether, because Oil-for-Food (or Iraqi reconstruction) is affected by corruption, you should reject the program (as many warbloggers have said in relation to Oil-for-Food). I didn’t say you shouldn’t get indignant; in fact I explicitly said the opposite, that those who could be caught should be prosecuted
roger 01.17.06 at 10:48 pm
John, okay. But the you had to accept part then seems sort of bizarre — more like, you had to anticipate.
John Quiggin 01.17.06 at 11:06 pm
I’ve rewritten to clarify my point. Thanks for picking me up on this, Roger.
McDuff 01.17.06 at 11:59 pm
And is this not the case?
I get the objection, I just think your example picked didn’t make the case particularly well, as this is exactly the trade off (or, part of it) that we city-dwellers make to enjoy our hedonistic, artistic lifestyles.
rdb 01.18.06 at 12:20 am
Since IOKIYR can’t apply to a monarchist like Lord Downer of Baghdad, can we hope this will be his Paddington Bear?
yabonn 01.18.06 at 4:23 am
From my point of view, there’s even more to it than some hypocrisy from the war-nuts.
The Outrage about Corruption and Assorted Bad Things move worked very well recently. One can expect it will become a classic : more opportune discoveries of the corruption of unfriendly dictators, of the u.n. etc, etc.
The annoyment of the facts (there is corruption, we’re doing it too, duh) is minor : it comes much later – and no one cares – or it doesn’t even come – “for privacy reasons”, as the Duelfer report delicately puts it.
Tim Worstall 01.18.06 at 5:45 am
So, err, Howard’s support of the war was to save the AWB from having to pay more kickbacks?
John Quiggin 01.18.06 at 7:53 am
Tim, one of the assumptions was that founder members of the Coalition of the Willing would be at the front of the queue for reconstruction contracts. There was a lot of bitterness in the Australian press when it became apparent that Halliburton would get the lot.
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