Gunfight Breaks Out as Iraqi Soldiers Try to Arrest Trade Officials

[Robbien]

Source: NYTimes

BAGHDAD — An effort by members of Parliament to prosecute what they say is a nest of corruption in the Trade Ministry led to a gun battle between ministry officials and Iraqi soldiers and the sudden disappearance of the trade minister and several senior ministry officials.

The gun battle occurred Wednesday, when anticorruption officials accompanied by Iraqi soldiers went to the ministry’s headquarters in the Mansour district of Baghdad to carry out arrest warrants on corruption charges against nine officials.

Only the minister’s spokesman, Muhammad Hannoun, was arrested. The others fled after a 15-minute firefight between the military and the minister’s security detail, according to the head of Iraq’s public integrity commission, Rahim al-Okaili.

The trade minister, Falah al-Sudani, has not been accused, but on Saturday the Iraqi Parliament called on him to answer for corruption charges against several senior directors at the ministry and two of his brothers, who also work as his bodyguards.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html?ref=middleeast

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Iraqi government officials engaging in shoot outs with Iraqi police. Mindboggling.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[pleah]

2. K&R

[bahrbearian]

3. I don't know but I smell Blackwater, and Snarly Dick.

An effort by members of Parliament to prosecute what they say is a nest of corruption in the Trade Ministry

[Hubert Flottz]

4. NeoCON Nation building...

That's how a Reich Wing PNAC designed "Democracy" is set up to operate...Dick Cheney and KB&(R) Halliburton taught them heathens how it's done.

Professor Dick Cheney(R)...Corruption 101

[Iggo]

5. Hey! That's our friends!

Go Iraq! Yay!

[PatrynXX]

6. Iraq is doomed to fail

because someone built the government on corruption for is foundation. It's going to collapse whether we are in Iraq or not. That's totally on Bush's head.

Dick's the main player, but Iraq was probably Bush's idea

[stillcool]

8. I don't think Bush made a..

single decision in that administration. He appears not to know enough to care, or care enough to know.

[underpants]

7. Wow who could have seen THAT coming???

from like 2002 :shrug:

:sarcasm:

[DemoTex]

9. Iraq needs a strong leader.

Oops. I forgot. No strong leaders allowed.

[mwb970]

10. Are we *sure* that Iraq is ready for democracy?

It sounds like they need a strongman to hold things together. You know, like Saddam was doing.

[DLnyc]

11. Hmm, would the Trade Ministry have anything to do with oil contracts?

BushCo tried to force through laws that allow large oil corporations to enter into "production sharing" agreements with Iraq (i.e. oil co's can pump the oil for a fixed fee, then charge whatever they want for the product). There was remarkably strong opposition to these agreements, basically holding out until after the 2008 election in the US.

Don't know the status of those agreements right now.

The problem with that kind of agreement is that corrupt trade officials (!) might be bribed to negotiate deals which grotesquely favor the corporations over the Iraqi people.

Probably all just coincidence, I guess.

[judesedit]

12. Bushco made the Iraq situation a hundred times worse by invading

We have to get out of there asap. Bush not only invaded a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11, destroyed it's infrastructure, gave orders to kill or maim AT LEAST 100,000 of Iraq's innocent citizens, many women and children, but funneled billions of dollars to a poor country ruled by greedy thugs we helped put there, along with the illegitimately placed contractors of Cheney and accomplices, both of whom everyone knew would swindle every cent of the funding they could and who now say they don't know where billions, by now possibly trillions, of our AMERICAN TAX-PAYER DOLLARS went....all in OUR NAME!

Not only that...he put AMERICAN military personnel in a very precarious situation, for sometimes 4 tours of duty, and has the blood of over 4,000 dead, and 25,000 wounded on his hands...all for the love of OIL $$$$. Personally, I don't know how Bushco sleep at night or live with themselves. I only hope the GOD THEY SAY THEY WORSHIP will make sure to let them know of the HELL they have caused others. I can see them in Dante's Inferno now. What goes around comes around.

I also know that the good the American soldiers did, had nothing to do with Bushco, but came from their own good judgment or their commanding officers judgment. God bless all who tried to improve the way of life for millions. Now it's time to help improve their lives by voting for more funding and follow-up for the VA and much more in benefits for the veterans themselves.

INVESTIGATE and PROSECUTE BUSHCO NOW!

[Enthusiast]

14. We were WAY better off with Saddam

He was exactly what we needed in Iraq. He was a Sunni leader, a dictator in a Shia world. His Iraq was a counterbalance to Iran. Who in the fuck decided to invade Iraq? Oh yeah. :spank:

[LiberalLovinLug]

13. Who would have guessed?

A government set up by BushCo. could be ripe with corruption?

:sarcasm:

[lovuian]

15. they Failed

and they keep on failing

Iraq is going to end up in Iran's hands when we leave
and we will leave in helicoptors as fast as we can

and afghanistan will be the same way