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Today's Must Read
You'd think that an Iraqi anti-corruption crusader who testified before Congress about his travails would find no great difficulty in obtaining asylum in the United States. You'd think the U.S. would be grateful for the news that $18 billion worth of corruption had virtually "stopped" reconstruction in Iraq. But not so much.
Former State Department officials told Congress earlier this week that, though Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, was able to get access into the U.S., he is not allowed to work and is living hand to mouth. Why has he fallen through the cracks?
It's always a toss-up between negligence/incompetence and malfeasance with this administration. On the negligence side of things, you have the disastrously impenetrable immigration system, which has allowed so few Iraqis to come to the U.S. As The New York Times reports today, U.S. soldiers have actually set up organizations to help their interpreters gain asylum, since the Iraqis, even though they face certain threat of death for collaborating with American forces, cannot navigate the system on their own. As one Army captain tells it, interpreters are required to produce a letter from a general, which he said was "like a junior associate at a Fortune 500 company asking the chief executive for a letter of recommendation."
But then there's the malfeasance side of things. One of the former officials testified that "a senior State Department official had ordered agency employees not to give al Radhi references or contact him" for help with his asylum.
That might have a lot to do with the trouble that Radhi gave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the administration. Like pointing out that corruption ran rampant under Maliki and that he'd jiggered the system so that corruption judges could not bring charges against any of his senior officials without his approval -- that was a decree on which Secretary of State Rice refused to pass judgment when she testified late last year. Rice also refused to comment on Radhi's many accusations.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) declared at the hearing early this week that he is "going to ask the State Department what in the hell are they thinking." Somehow I don't think Rice will be any more forthcoming this time around.
Comments (19)
Maybe Bush's Fantastic Freedom Institute can work on this after he steps down from the presidency. If there's time after clearin' brush and replenishin' the ol' coffers.
May 14, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also remember... both the Republican AND Democrat Congress and Senate are supporting this administration. It's the same as if you yelled at your juvenile delinquent son about how he is ruining his (and your) life while giving him $50 for the booze party he's throwing at your house tonight... and throw him the keys to your car while your at it...
May 14, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
BOTH the congress AND the senate?!!??
leave it to the single issue concern troll who lacks the faculties to distinguish democrats from republicans to fail to correctly identify the two chambers of the legislature.
May 14, 2008 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The tell is the use of "Democrat" instead of "Democratic".
May 14, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we should start a campaign for a new word - "republicant" Extremely appropriate, don't you think?
I feel that the usage of the word democrat as an adjective is so offensive to anyone with basic knowledge of grammar that every republicant congressperson should be corrected by the media every time they use it; Or, we encourage them to continue sounding like ignorant nucular fools whose votes put them in office.
May 14, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
REPUGLITARDS
works for me
May 14, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Johnny, the Republicans will say bad things about the Democrats if the don't do whatever they want and you know that wouldn't do.
May 14, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Since corruption is the primary tool used to "liberate" Iraq, this guy is in the poo with our honchos for sure.
I was impressed by the 60 Minutes piece on Radhi; this fellow has brass ones. I wish we had a few like him in office over here. He was inclined to do the ethical thing because it was...just ethical.
May 14, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe that this will be the final and greatest shame of this debacle. None of the individuals helping us, without whom we wouldn't get anything done, is going to survive once we're gone.
It's premeditated murder.
May 14, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some of the corruption is related to the so-called Illinois Combine which was looting both Iraq and Illinois:
The front-page of the April 26, 2008, Sun-Times provided the lead-in to the final subplot found at the end of the Board Games investigation when it reports:
"An ex-international fugitive helped spring Tony Rezko from jail earlier this month, putting up homes that comprise nearly one-third of the $8.5 million in property and cash securing Rezko's bail."
"The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae -- a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 -- are part of a long list made public ... following a Sun-Times request."
Snip
Alsammarae was recruited from Chicago by the Bush administration in the fall of 2002 for a project called the “Future of Iraq,” to plot the take-over of Iraq months before Americans were told of Bush’s plan to take the country to war.
He was appointed minister of electricity in August 2003, and was photographed at a White House ceremony in the Oval Office on September 22, 2003, at which Bush called him a "good soul," who "inherited a system of a corrupt tyrant."
Less then three months later, other members of the “Combine,” now indicted as co-schemers, flew to Washington on a private jet to attend a White House Christmas party on December 3, 2003, including Rezko, Levine, William Cellini, and Robert Kjellander. "
The quoted material was taken from an Evelyn Pringle article.
Rezko set up two shell companies -- one to obtain the contract for training Iraqi guards and one to obtain a 50 million dollar contract to provide electricity. Neither company had any assets.
In any event, I am not going to vote for the last man in Chicago to discover that Rezko is a crook.
May 14, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
... yep, say bad things about the Dems and filibuster any meaningful legislation to ensure the status of do-nothing Congress remains intact until after 2008. Hard to get accountability if the bills barely make it to the floor.
Time to clear out more dead wood there too.
I think perhaps a better analogy than the foggy-eyed enabler scenario Johnny suggests, is the school teachers whose operating budgets have been so starved they're using their own limited incomes to provide resources for their students, then getting blamed for less-than-stellar results. This is happening while they're forced to weather a superintendent who makes up his own rules and lets his business partners raid the district coffers.
They simply don't have the leverage.
May 14, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
That said, I would like to see the current Dems cut some purse strings. At least that would fuel some debate.
May 14, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
How many Iraqi refugees have we accepted at this point? Four?
Disgraceful.
May 14, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
presnit george don't like bad news
this poor bastard is lucky he wasn't poleaxed for his trouble
at least we know georgie ain't gonna behead a messenger bearing bad news
too Muslim ...
May 14, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got the sense, after seeing the 60 Minutes piece, that they really didn't want to give him asylum--as I'm sure BushCo has to be complicit in all of this muck--and once he had asylum it would be harder for him to keep quiet about that. Imagine yourself an Iraqi in the US with the goods on the current Administration and an application in at the State Department--would you go mouthing off about what you know?
May 14, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course they don't want to give him asylum. He obviously knows too much about the Good, Fine Upstanding Republicans, i.e. those who were complicit in the corruption). He can name names.
Once those names are named, they will name more names... and so on, and so on, until the names of Little Georgie, The Big Dick, and Ronald Dumsfeld start coming up.
Accountability is NOT and option.
May 14, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's total bull. "Democratic" is an Orwellianism that implies that the party is democratic and that other parties (Rethug, Green, whatever) are automatically less so. Which may or may not be true, but building it into the name and requiring it to be mindlessly repeated is as offensive as naming it the "Good People Party." Democrats should not get a free pass on being democratic, because as we know, they often aren't.
May 14, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
and... Republicans are the only ones who believe the US should be a republic???
you are confusing "Democratic" and "democratic". when the "d" is capitalized, those of us who understand the English language understand the difference.
May 14, 2008 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
As the Judge is "living hand to mouth" as he and his family seek asylum, is there a charitable fund that is or would serve as a vehicle to help support him in the interim? If anyone has ideas, suggestions etc. please post!
May 15, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink