U.S. Auditor: Corruption at $5 billion yearly; Maliki blocking probes

An armed guard poses beside pallets of $100 bills in Baghdad, part of $12 billion in cash 'distributed' by the Coalition Provisional Authority in the year following the invastion. Much of the money has never been accounted for.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The office of Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has used a Saddam Hussein-era law to halt dozens of corruption-related probes of government ministries, a US auditor's report said Monday.

The report by the special inspector general for Iraq, Stuart Bowen, said Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) estimates the cost of corruption at around five billion dollars a year.

The real cost of corruption is difficult to measure, the report added, warning that "opportunities for corruption have increased."

"The Prime Minister's Office has ordered CPI not to refer to any investigative court any case involving a minister or former minister without prior approval of the Prime Minister," Bowen's quarterly report to Congress said.

Read the rest at Yahoo News

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