Spencer Ackerman September 5, 2007, 12:51 PM

Sometimes the Pentagon presents misleading Iraq data. Other times, it minimizes its own findings, as it does on one of the most controversial aspects of the Iraqi training effort: endemic corruption and sectarianism in the Ministry of the Interior.

Interior, which controls the police, is the sharpest weapon of Shiite power in Iraq. Here’s the Government Accountability Office’s report:

[M]ilitia influence affects every component of the Ministry of the Interior, especially in Baghdad and in other key cities, according to DOD. This influence, along with corruption and illegal activity, constrains progress in the development of Ministry of Interior forces.

Notice that attribution: “according to DOD.” But look at the relevant section of the June 2007 Pentagon quarterly report on Iraq (pdf), beginning at page 31. The top line is what GAO describes, on both the question of militia infiltration and corruption. But then the Defense Department explains it away:

The [Ministry of the Interior] still struggles with internal corruption, and the ministry made continued efforts this quarter to address this problem. Key to these efforts is effective investigations when allegations appear to have credibility.

In support of that statement, the report lists over 1900 internal corruption investigations which have resulted in the firing of nearly 900 ministry employees. But, according to a memo from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, those investigations don’t exactly go anywhere.

In the memo, which was obtained by David Corn, embassy officials cite Interior’s uncanny ability to stop inquires from going forward. The ministry, according to the memo, has been “co-opted by organized criminals.” Iraqi investigators had even “expressed their fear of being assassinated should they aggressively pursue their duties at [the Ministry].”

It’ll be worth hearing what Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus make of the Interior Ministry’s apparent gangsterism. The ministry, of course, is responsible for part of what the DOD June 2007 report calls “one of the strategic objectives” of the war, and sugar-coating what the ministry does hardly serves anyone’s purpose — except maybe those of the militias.

Iraq