Iran’s Deadly Puppet Master and the massacre of innocents

His brilliance, effectiveness, and commitment to his country have been revered by his allies and denounced by his critics in equal measure. What all seem to agree on, however, is that the humble leader’s steady hand has helped guide Iranian foreign policy for decades—and there is no denying his successes on the battlefield. Suleimani is arguably the most powerful and unconstrained actor in the Middle East today. U.S. defense officials have reported that Suleimani is running the Syrian civil war (via Iran’s local proxies) all on his own.

Suleimani has a long history of attacking U.S. service members and is responsible for the deaths of at least 600 Americans in Iraq alone, current and former officials say. O’Brien on Friday also cited Suleimani’s support for President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria and violent repressing of recent protests in Iran.

The downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 on Wednesday came just hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two airbases housing US forces in Iraq. The strikes were a response to the killing of senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January.

Sunday June 26, 2011

Assad troops carry out more sweep operations on the borders with Turkey and Lebanon, arresting hundreds, terrorizing thousands and driving more refugees into both countries

The suburbs of Barzeh in Damascus continue to suffer from army incursions and house to house searches since Friday: dozens of arrests have been made and 7 fatalities have been reported.

Meanwhile, the Damascene suburbs of Zabadani and Madaya have once again been put under military siege, as Kisweh held a massive night-time funeral attended by over 50,000 in honor of a martyred colleague. Syrian Revolution Digest


More than $6 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds lost

The Iraqi and U.S. governments have been unable to account for a substantial chunk of the billions of dollars in reconstruction aid the Bush administration literally airlifted into the country. If the cash proves to have been stolen, the heist could represent "the largest theft of funds in national history," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
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Witnesses testified that millions of dollars were shoved into "gunnysacks" and disbursed to Iraqi contractors on pick-up trucks, with what seemed to be little financial controls or accounting on the part of the U.S. government. yahoo

UN on back foot

JAKARTA (AFP) – The United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNMIT) was on the back foot Friday after Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao angrily accused the world body of trampling on his country's sovereignty.
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He said that from 2000 to 2008 the "international community" had spent almost $8 billion in the tiny half-island state but "we do not see any physical development and even more poverty was created in our country".
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"My proposal is this: UNMIT and Timorese experts, offer your services to improve Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and give support to democracy in Yemen, Syria and Libya," Gusmao said. yahoo/AFP


$1bn fraud at Kabul Bank

The move, to "protect taxpayers' money", came as the full extent of the scandal at Kabul Bank – described as the biggest fraud in modern times... independent


NATO fuel tanker explodes in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Militants in northwest Pakistan blew up a tanker carrying oil for NATO forces in Afghanistan on Saturday, and a secondary explosion killed 15 people as a group gathered to try to siphon off some of its fuel. Another bombing damaged 14 NATO tankers in a nearby border town, but no one was hurt. usatoday


Six-Figure Pensions at Age 50 at the IMF

The IMF's pension structure allows many of its economists to be able to draw pensions in excess of $100,000 a year in their early fifties. It is remarkable that no major news outlet has ever mentioned these exorbitant pensions at a time when politicians across the country have been screaming about pensions for public employees that average less than $30,000 a year and generally require workers to wait until their 60s before they start receiving benefits. cepr

Pervasive Corruption Rattles Iraq’s Fragile State

Money is skimmed off of salaries. Contracts are manipulated and fudged to wring personal profit. Ghost police officers are listed on payrolls so commanders can take the salaries, and other police officers are told they are fired even as commanders continue to take their pay. Criminals and insurgents are freed with a well-placed bribe, criminal records are expunged for payment, detainees are abused by guards in order to extort money from relatives.

Beyond the outright financial corruption, there is also political corruption, in which the parties vying for power here look to secure the loyalty of large chunks of the security apparatus, according to Iraqi and Western officials.

Police officers corroborated much of what is in the report and gave other examples of the kind of corruption that threatens the stability of the security forces.

“Our brigade commander steals $34,000 out of the $41,000 allocated monthly for the food,” said one police officer. “He replaced our battalion commander four times because they were not cooperating with him.”

Another officer described how some people on the payroll never showed up for work but came only to get their pay, which they shared with their patron.

“Every officer with the rank of a colonel or higher has at least 10 policemen from whom he takes all or part of their salaries,” said the officer. “We call those policemen ‘fadhaei,’ ” which translate roughly as aliens from outer space.

The corruption runs from the highest officials to the street corner police officer, according to senior investigators, but the report itself is careful not to name officials directly.

Mr. Bolani defended his ministry’s efforts to cut down on corruption, progress that Western officials and other experts also recognize. He cited the elimination of death squads, which used to operate from within the ministry, as a “revolution.” Over the last two years roughly 62,000 employees who had criminal records were fired.

Despite the purge of the ministry, Aqeel al-Turaihi, the ministry’s inspector general, said there were thousands more people on the payroll with troubling backgrounds.

In the first half of this year alone, inspectors have found $122 million in stolen funds, only a fraction of what corrupt officials have siphoned off from the immense bureaucracy, according to the report.

Experts say there are parts of Iraq’s government that have shown slow improvement.

In the first six months of this year, 1,455 arrest warrants have been issued by the Iraqi Commission of Public Integrity, in charge of corruption prosecutions (though only 397 people have been convicted on corruption charges since the commission began its work in 2004 until the end of last year).

Earlier this year, the minister of trade was forced to resign after a fraud scandal relating to the distribution of food. The New York Times