Good Students

The UK's Guardian brings us a picture of the Bush-style Democracy in Iraq:

Iraqi authorities are preparing an arrest warrant for the country's former defence minister in connection with a massive fraud case involving the "disappearance" of more than $1bn from ministry coffers.

Judge Raid al-Radhi, who is head of Iraq's commission on public integrity, said yesterday that he had given Iraq's central criminal court a dossier of evidence against Hazim Shaalan, who was minister of defence under the former government of Ayed Allawi.

"What Shaalan and his ministry were responsible for is possibly the largest robbery in the world. Our estimates begin at $1.3bn [£720m] and go up to $2.3bn," Judge Radhi, who is Iraq's senior anti-corruption official, told Reuters.

The "robbery" is believed to include the signing of multimillion-dollar deals with companies to supply equipment that was sometimes inappropriate for the new army or was years out of date. It is also alleged that the ministry paid huge premiums for some military hardware. ...

Mr Shaalan, who is understood to be living in Jordan, has denied complicity in the scandal, saying that his actions as defence minister were ultimately the responsibility of the US authorities in Iraq.

News of the warrant came after the Iraqi finance minister, Ali Allawi, claimed in an interview with the Independent newspaper that $1bn had been stolen from the defence ministry.

Mr Allawi said the rampant corruption and fraud at the defence ministry had left the new Iraqi army with second-rate weapons with which to confront the insurgency. "Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal," Mr Allawi said.

Ayed Allawi's government was in power from the end of June 2004 until late February this year. The new Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has repeatedly complained about the legacy of administrative and financial corruption.

Judge Radhi said there was also evidence against the transport, trade, interior, public works and labour ministries, and that up to 50 officials could be brought to justice.

Allegations of corruption at the defence ministry have been swirling around Baghdad for some time, but the scale of the fraud has shocked many. A defence ministry source, who requested anonymity, told The Guardian yesterday that hundreds of millions of dollars had been wasted on unnecessary and overpriced equipment for Iraq's military.

"There appears to be no oversights and accountability in the procurement," he said. Investigators have been investigating weapons and equipment deals struck by the former procurement officer Ziad Cattan and other officials. The source said the most egregious case involved a $236m contract last December to equip the Iraqi army with helicopters and other material.

No oversights or accountability in procurement? Hmm.

Meanwhile, in Washington:

David Hossein Safavian was arrested today based on a three- count criminal complaint filed at federal court in Washington, D.C. The complaint charges Safavian with making false statements to a GSA ethics officer and the GSA-OIG, along with obstruction of a GSA-OIG investigation.

The affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint alleges that from May 16, 2002 until January 10, 2004, Safavian served as Chief of Staff at the GSA. During that time he allegedly aided a Washington D.C. lobbyist in the lobbyist's attempts to acquire GSA-controlled property in and around Washington, D.C. In August 2002, this lobbyist allegedly took Safavian and others on a golf trip to Scotland.

The false statement and obstruction of the investigation charges relate to Safavian's statements to a GSA ethics officer and the GSA-OIG that the lobbyist had no business with GSA prior to the August 2002 golf trip. According to the affidavit, Safavian concealed the fact that the lobbyist had business before GSA prior to the August 2002 golf trip, and that Safavian was aiding the lobbyist in his attempts to do business with GSA.

For "lobbyist" read "Jack Abramoff". For "others on a golf trip" read "Tom Delay".

Since Nov. 29, 2004, Safavian has served as the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget.

Correction: Tom Delay went on a similar trip, not this one. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) was on this one. The 'non-select' New York Times has more on the story:

Mr. Safavian worked with Mr. Abramoff in the Washington lobbying offices of Preston Gates & Ellis, a Seattle-based firm. According to lobbying records, Mr. Safavian shared at least one client with Mr. Abramoff, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and also represented Microsoft, the Port of Seattle and the Dredging Contractors of America.

His wife, Jennifer Safavian, is chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee, which is responsible for overseeing government procurement and is, among other things, expected to conduct the Congressional investigation into missteps after Hurricane Katrina.

Both Mr. Safavian and his wife graduated from Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University. They have a daughter.

According to his former colleagues in the Bush administration and interviews he gave, Mr. Safavian considered encouraging "competitive sourcing" or outsourcing government work to private contractors to be a primary goal in his job at the Office of Management and Budget.

He did not oversee specific contracts, but instead managed overall guidelines for government purchasing, associates said. In an interview in June with Federal Times, a newspaper that focuses on the workings of the federal government, Mr. Safavian described his work for the office and said that "the best advice I've gotten was from my grandfather and that advice is that you've got to have ethics and integrity in everything you do, especially here in D.C."

Sorry, grandad.