I received many responses to my article (posted below) on the secret Baghdad embassy report detailing rampant corruption within the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki. One veteran Middle East analyst for the U.S. government (no longer in public service) huffed, Corruption in the Middle East--big deal. A former high-ranking State Department official wondered if the leak was part of a Dick Cheney campaign to blame the Iraqis, as a prelude to withdrawing troops. (It was not.) Wayne White, a former Iraq analyst at the State Department's intelligence office, sent the following note:

This is an extremely important story. Rampant corruption at all levels of governance is yet another reason why most Iraqis have little reason to feel a sense of loyalty toward it--especially Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who, with little access to government positions or contracts since 2003, have had little access to this sort of loot.

I expect no miracles on the enforcement front with respect to this mess for many of the same reasons dogging other aspects of Iraqi governance, so this will remain a significant drag on government revenue as well as the translation of such revenue into results on the ground.

If the Maliki government is a cesspool of corruption, as the U.S. embassy report indicates, and little is being done about this, as the report also indicates, it seems the Bush administration will have a hard time turning anything around. Why should U.S. soldiers die (and kill) to help a government ripping off the Iraqis? Sure, one can come up with various "strategic" reasons. (We can't let Iran take full control of Iraq, etc.) But the ground truth is that Americans are dying in part to help a government of crooks and schemers. Given the difficult circumstances of Iraq, it's tough to see how the United States can succeed in Iraq when the government it supports is rotten.

A CRASH, A FLIGHT DELAY, IT'S ALL THE SAME. I've never heard of Eric Kleiman, the director of product marketing for Continental Airlines. And I don't follow the aviation industry too closely. But I'd be willing to bet that Kleiman is one of the worst flacks in the business. Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a front-page story noting that parents are peeved that because airlines are showing PG and R films with graphic violence on flights young kids can be confronted by such scenes as Anthony Hopkins shooting his wife in the face (from Fracture). This is a legitimate concern. You can keep headsets from children, but you can't force them not to look at screens hanging from the top of the airplane. And blindfolds don't work too well.

Kleiman pooh-poohed: "Parents have to be responsible for the actions of their kids--whether they shouldn't look at the screen or look away." That's only true to a point, because on some flights (as I noted above) the screens hang right in front of children. Then Kleiman went on to say: "People love Pepsi, and we don't serve that, so there you go, we just ruined their flight. That's an accurate analogy." Not serving a passenger's preferred cola is the same as showing bloody gun violence to six-year-olds? That's asinine. The man is an embarrassment for all the spinners out there in Corporate America. He deserves to be tossed--with no parachute.

Posted by David Corn at September 4, 2007 11:07 AM