Corruption shrouding arms deal

Middle East News

Corruption shrouding arms deal – MP

Baghdad, May 16, (VOI) – The parliament's anti-corruption committee said on Friday that it has documents proving the Iraqi defense ministry's involvement in corruption pertaining to an arms deal it had signed with Serbia.

"The committee is in possession of documents regarding some of the deals signed by the defense ministry. There are documents proving the ministry's involvement in financial and administrative corruption in the contracts signed with some countries," the committee rapporteur, Alia Nassif, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

"The committee has asked the parliament speaker to host the defense minister in the committee to question him on this specific issue but he failed to appear before parliament despite several calls by the speakership board," Nassif, who belongs to the Iraqi National List (INL), said.

"We had only one way and that was collecting signatures inside the parliament to get a majority to have him questioned," she added, noting so far "60 signatures of legislators representing all political blocs were collected."
The INL, led by the former Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has 19 out of the Iraqi parliament's total of 275 seats.

The U.S. newspaper New York Times had published in mid-April 2008 a report about a secret $833 million deal between Iraq and Serbia to purchase arms, adding the deal disclosed "corruption and inefficiency".

The deal, signed with Serbia in September 2007, occurred without a prior tender and drew a lot of criticism that spurred Iraqi officials to trim the volume of purchases to $236 million, the paper said.

However, the parliament's security & defense committee argued that the deal concluded by the defense ministry was in line with the constitution, dismissing any financial or technical flaws in it.

"The security & defense committee is fully acquainted with the deal, the quantity and quality of the weapons, their number and the cashed sums," Hassan al-Sanid, a member of the committee, told VOI.

"Raising such an issue without evidence, figures or documents proving dereliction would hinder the armament of the Iraqi army," said Sanid, noting the deal was "concluded upon the cabinet's approval and all the relevant legal and constitutional frameworks were respected."

Sanid belongs to the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC), the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 83 seats.

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Corruption shrouding arms deal – MP