God, Graft & Greed
by Mark Tooley, Providence Magazine:
There’s a sad and tragic Washington Post story of an Iraqi teenage boy who struggled with cancer for years and sought treatment at an Iraqi cancer hospital built by the U.S. for over $100 million, touted by then First Lady Laura Bush. The noble American intention was to ensure Iraqi children had first class cancer treatment. The result was that corrupt Iraqi officials and contractors siphoned off millions of dollars, depriving the hospital of needed equipment, medicines and personnel. The doctor eventually told the boy’s family they could find the needed treatment only outside Iraq. But the family had already spent all their meager resources. The boy died. And his family in his grief.
As the Post noted, Iraq’s Ministry of Health is well-funded and will spend $1.3 billion this year just on hospital construction. But the “ministry is dominated by the party of populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who emerged as the winner in national elections in October, and is a cash cow for those who run it.”
Corruption at the expense of the needy is not unique to post-U.S. invasion Iraq. Among his countless other crimes and thieveries, Saddam Hussein infamously siphoned $1.8 billion from the United Nations food for oil program intended to feed malnourished Iraqis. Such graft and exploitation by ruling cliques are common to varying degrees in especially in poorer Global South countries, even more so under dictatorships. Western aid plays a big role in bankrolling this graft. It’s also common in somewhat wealthier but authoritarian and kleptocratic regimes like Putin’s Russia.
It’s an old story that dates to the start of humanity. The powerful steal and the powerless suffer. The possibly avoidable death of an Iraqi teenager, despite the over $100 million spent by America to help young cancer patients, shocks us. In America, such a scandal is unlikely. We are wealthier, yes. But such brazen corruption and thievery by public officials is far less common. There are typically oversight, transparency, and accountability. Public officials skimming funds from hospital construction in the U.S., resulting in needless tragedy and death by suffering children, in most cases would be challenged by colleagues, lower level whistle blowers, journalists, bloggers, various other levels of government, local and federal, amid litigation. It would become a national scandal. In Iraq, and in much of the world, it’s mostly just another day. Presumably the Iraqi dead boy’s parents won’t sue Moqtada al-Sadr. Largescale graft is the widely accepted reward for rulers, and their tribes with other supporters. Why shouldn’t they?
America and Western countries have far lower levels of systemic graft, but it’s not because Westerners are intrinsically more virtuous. Human nature is universal. But there is an ethos in the Christian-shaped West that makes flagrant public thievery, especially at the expense of children’s lives, less acceptable. The accountability and challenge of democratic rule and free speech enable exposure, opposition and consequences in response to corruption.
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