The Washington Post today reported on some of the mechanisms used by Iraqi legislators to avoid corruption investigations
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reinstated the law, under which no governmental corruption case can be instituted against an Iraqi minister or former minister without the minister's permission. The ministers can, in turn, selectively immunize their subordinates, thus protecting them from being prosecuted for corruption.
As a result, more than 48 investigations or prosecutions initiated between September 2006 and February 2007 by Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) were stopped, according to the March 11, 2007, memo prepared for the embassy's Anti-corruption Working Group.
Of course there are a number of members of Congress who will point to this as evidence that Iraq is simply not worthy of our support. But back in May, they were singing a different tune
Leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill accused the FBI on Tuesday of overstepping constitutional boundaries designed to protect Congress when it raided a Democratic lawmaker's office over the weekend.
The Justice Department's bribery investigation of Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson has turned up $90,000 in his freezer and won guilty pleas from two associates, but Republicans and Democrats alike said investigators went too far when they ignored long-standing precedent and executed a search warrant on his office on Capitol Hill....
The House's No. 2 Democrat, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, said it was another example of the Bush administration's disregard for limits on its power.
"No member is above the law, but the institution has a right to protect itself against the executive department going into our offices," Hoyer said.
If we're not careful, the US Congress will be learning from Iraq instead of the other way around.
Or maybe, it is the other way around
