هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
Under cover of darkness, in a scene Baghdad has not witnessed since 2003, military convoys belonging to the Counter-Terrorism Service — known as the “special operations” forces — moved at dawn on Sunday, June 28, to seal off the entrances to the heavily fortified International Zone, or Green Zone, launching a judicial-security operation that was unprecedented in both secrecy and objectives.
Iraqis were stunned at dawn on Sunday to discover that these movements were not, this time, to contain a tribal dispute, a clash between armed factions or to secure an international summit, but rather the start of what was described in the media and political circles as the “largest judicial campaign” against the country’s corruption networks.
By the early morning hours, these forces had managed to arrest about 47 senior government officials, including members of parliament, government advisers and leaders of political blocs, throwing open the door to many complex and intertwined questions, chief among them:
- Why did this campaign come at this particular moment?
- Does this signal the start of a genuine anti-corruption drive?
- What are the implications and objectives of this campaign?
- Why did the campaign target certain politicians and officials but not others whom international data indicate are involved in corruption, money laundering and smuggling?
- Can the government bring down larger corruption networks backed by arms and enjoying regional support?
A judicial precedent
Iraq is among the countries that have suffered from rampant financial and administrative corruption for decades, as the country ranks 140th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, scoring 26 out of 100, alongside a low ranking in governance and anti-corruption indicators issued by the World Bank.
The latest campaign came amid a sudden media and political blackout by all officials, as Ali al-Zaidi’s government and the Supreme Judicial Council made use of a legal provision in the Iraqi Constitution that allowed the executive and judicial authorities to lift immunity from a number of lawmakers during parliament’s legislative recess.
In this regard, legal researcher Mustafa Ahmed told NoonPost that the judiciary made use of Constitutional Article 63/Second/C, which stipulates that a lawmaker’s immunity may be lifted during the legislative recess with the approval of the speaker of parliament alone. This made it possible to quickly strip the detained lawmakers — 12 MPs — of immunity without having to submit a judicial request to parliament and put it to a vote, as required by the Constitution when the legislature is in session.
Ahmed explained that this campaign could not have been carried out during the legislative term, as the procedures would have required a long time and complex steps that might have allowed the accused to flee the country, he said.
Ahmed believes it is not unlikely that judicial measures also included arrest warrants for other lawmakers and officials who are currently outside the country during the legislative recess, noting that judicial secrecy and the lack of leaks about the arrest warrants and details of the security operation allowed the government to move with a speed the country has never seen before.
The snowball
Iraq’s new government, headed by Ali al-Zaidi, began its work less than two months ago burdened by enormous domestic and foreign debt, while Iraqi oil exports had been halted for more than three months because of the US-Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It also faces what may be the greatest US pressure any Iraqi government has confronted since the 2003 invasion, as Washington has for months halted cash dollar flows into the country, conditioning their resumption on combating currency smuggling and corruption, disarming factions and breaking free from Iranian influence.
All these factors combined have left al-Zaidi’s government financially, politically and internationally besieged, especially with the state treasury empty and no general budget for this year. This pushed the government to pressure political blocs to move against a deep corruption network uncovered by investigations and headed by Deputy Oil Minister for Refining Adnan al-Jumaili.
In comments to NoonPost, political researcher Riyadh al-Ali said al-Jumaili’s arrest would not have happened were it not for the severe embarrassment the country is facing and the US economic pressure that escalated after the recent war on Iran. Investigations into al-Jumaili whose full details have not yet been disclosed to the public led to the latest security campaign, which saw the arrest of 47 people accused of corruption.
Al-Ali said the small snowball that began with al-Jumaili’s arrest grew during the investigations, leading to the exposure of major corruption networks linked to financing election campaigns for former and current lawmakers. Authorities also discovered vast financial caches buried in farms and homes, amounting to billions, along with gold bars and dozens of properties in upscale areas of Baghdad and other cities.
As for whether the campaign will continue and expand, al-Ali said that cannot be stated with certainty. Although al-Zaidi’s campaign is the broadest and largest in the past two decades, Iraqis fear it may resemble what the country saw at the start of previous governments, which also exposed major corruption networks. The latest of those was what is locally known as the “deal of the century,” involving the theft of $2.8 billion in tax trust funds, after which the main suspect, Nour Zuhair, was released.
The campaign’s selectivity
Despite these speculations, al-Ali told NoonPost that there is a realistic possibility the campaign could widen in line with US and international pressure following the war on Iran. “The most important question now remains: How far can the campaign expand? The arrests that took place, although high-quality and unprecedented, have not reached the biggest fish of corruption, those popularly accused especially the architects of the political process, money laundering and smuggling operations, and those who have armed wings and are backed by influential parties,” al-Ali added.
The campaign saw the arrest of a number of politically prominent figures, most notably MP Alia Nassif of the Reconstruction and Development Alliance, in addition to Ziad al-Janabi, head of parliament’s Integrity Committee, as well as Azm Alliance leader Muthanna al-Samarrai and other prominent figures.
Statements from al-Zaidi’s Iraqi government indicate that the anti-corruption campaign is ongoing. Government spokesman Haider al-Aboudi said the measures taken within the anti-corruption framework are proceeding along a legal and judicial track, noting that a number of those implicated are still fugitives and that the relevant agencies continue to pursue them, while investigations continue after confessions led to the exposure of names and political and parliamentary figures.
Al-Aboudi said during a news conference Monday that the confessions made by one of those involved in the case — referring to al-Jumaili — were the spark that set the operation in motion and revealed new details and the involvement of other figures.
Despite the political weight of those arrested, many questions remain about the possibility of bringing down other officials accused of corruption, especially leaders of political blocs affiliated with the Coordination Framework and other blocs that have armed wings, economic offices and armed factions. So far, no official backed by an armed group or faction, or linked to an economic office, has been arrested among the dozens of economic offices accused of organized corruption in the country.
Security researcher Hassan al-Obaidi told NoonPost that the Iraqi street is raising many security and political questions about the recent arrests: “What if detained lawmaker Alia Nassif were still part of the State of Law Coalition would it have been possible to arrest her? Why did the operation involve the arrest of only one political bloc leader despite accusations that also implicate many other bloc leaders?
All these questions cannot be settled now. The government insists it is moving ahead with the operation, and time will answer these fundamental questions, through which it will be possible to judge whether this campaign is limited or will go further and become more dangerous,” he said.
In that context, regarding the risks tied to the repercussions of the anti-corruption security campaign, warns political science professor Issam al-Faili of the possibility of a violent reaction from the affected political blocs, especially those with armed wings and massive media institutions, which may see the campaign as a major threat if it continues and expands.
Political science professor Iyad al-Anbar also stresses that the government’s credibility in its latest campaign lies in its ability to dismantle the country’s corruption system, which does not stop at the political figures who have been arrested, and that it must include targeting the circles linked to corruption known as the “economic offices of parties and political forces.”
Al-Anbar warned, in discussing the issue, of the possibility that this security and judicial campaign could later be aborted through legal maneuvering and political deals that might lead to the issuance of a “general amnesty law,” considering that if it happens a setback for all the judiciary’s steps and the path of reform sought in Iraq.
Difficult choices
Looking beyond the judicial-security campaign against the country’s corruption networks, it appears al-Zaidi’s government faces extremely difficult choices. The network that was uncovered and led by Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili may be considered one of the smaller networks compared with the scale of corruption in the country, which is estimated at no less than $300 billion according to previous government data, while those figures may well have doubled after years of looting public funds, as confirmed by statements from the Financial Supervision Bureau and international organizations concerned with governance and transparency.
Commenting on this, economic expert Anmar al-Obaidi told NoonPost that corruption in Iraq goes beyond the country’s borders and has a security dimension. The smuggling of Iraqi oil, border crossings, customs and factories are all files tied to regional actors that transcend Iraq’s internal problem and are linked to Iran, which could leave the prime minister facing extremely difficult choices in confronting the “big fish of corruption,” some of whom, he said, have become a deep state controlling appointments to senior positions through corrupt money.
Al-Obaidi added that what may offer Iraqis a glimmer of hope is that the Iraqi judiciary and executive authority were able to carry out Sunday dawn’s campaign in complete secrecy, without any prior information leaking onto social media something that happened in most previous moves.
This may be a sign that restores Iraqis’ hope of saving the country from its current state, especially with the Iraqi judiciary and its chief, Faiq Zaidan, insisting on pressing ahead with anti-corruption measures.
Al-Zaidi’s messages to Washington
Against the backdrop of developments in Iraq, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is preparing to visit Washington in mid-July at the invitation of President Donald Trump, at a time when Washington is demanding a series of field measures related to disarming armed factions and militias, stopping dollar smuggling and financing for Iran, and decoupling the Iraqi economy from Iran’s.
In that context, Sunday dawn’s anti-corruption campaign came as a sign of real government action whose echoes have reached Washington, pending the US assessment, according to many observers.
In this regard, political researcher Riyadh al-Ali believes Washington’s approach toward Iraq may not go beyond three scenarios, especially as the government has begun working on the file of disarming the factions:
- Washington endorses the recent judicial-security operation while demanding that al-Zaidi carry out more campaigns to arrest prominent figures accused of corruption and of financing what Washington considers “support” for terrorism and militias.
- Washington grants the Iraqi government a deadline to fulfill its pledges to disarm armed factions according to the timetable announced by the Iraqi government, which, according to its spokesman Haider al-Aboudi, ends at the end of next September, amid the refusal of many factions to surrender their weapons, most notably Hezbollah Brigades, Harakat al-Nujaba and others.
- The third possible scenario appears more hard-line and may involve Washington remaining unconvinced by the Iraqi steps while keeping the sword of economic pressure hanging over Baghdad until the government fulfills its commitments.
Iraqis are following the latest developments in the country amid leaks indicating that many of those arrested have confessed to important new information that could bring down other big heads in the coming days.