Iraq’s new prime minister vows to clean up the country

The puzzle for Iraq’s kleptocrats was always how to spirit their stolen billions out of the country. Foreign banks have been wary of accepting large transfers from Baghdad. Taking piles of cash out by land is risky; Kurds closely watch the frontier with Turkey. Now there is a new conduit. A British security company, G4S, used to scrutinise cargo leaving Baghdad airport. But in his last weeks as prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi approved its replacement with Biznis Intel, a company with no apparent experience of airport security. “It’s very easy now to bring things in and out,” says an airport employee. “A big amount of money is being smuggled out.”

Iraq has long suffered under greedy rulers. Saddam Hussein treated the state’s resources as his own. Since he was ousted by American troops in 2003, successive elected governments have been riddled with graft. Officials take cuts from contracts or hire ghost workers and pocket their salaries. Even so, a recent alleged theft is hard to top. Since September 2021 the country’s tax deposits have been raided to the tune of 3.7trn Iraqi dinars ($2.5bn), according to an investigation by the finance ministry cited by Iraq’s new prime minister, Muhammad al-Sudani. Corruption on this scale helps explain why many of Iraq’s 41m people do not have reliable water or electricity, even though their country is the second-largest oil producer in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).