BAGHDAD: As if the daily suicide bombings and kidnappings are not enough, US forces and their Iraqi counterparts are battling a hidden but no less lethal danger — corruption.

At a recent meeting of US commanders, Iraqi security chiefs and local officials, frank words were exchanged on the ease with which insurgents can slip through checkpoints as long as they have the money to pay.

So what’s it worth to render an Iraqi security checkpoint a waste of time? About $200, according to one local official.

“No terrorist goes through the checkpoints,” Iraq General Faisal Kassem Elewi boasted during the meeting in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Rashid, on the edge of one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq.

“If you pay $200 it’s OK,” muttered the official beside him, apparently frustrated with the efforts of Iraqi troops in the area.

The general had just finished telling a US officer, Major Tim Davies, that he would succeed where everyone else, including the combined military forces of the United States, had failed.

“We have to clear this area. When I was transferred here nobody cared. Now it is safe again,” he said. “I promise you this area is going to be cleared of terrorists.”

“What about the electricity?” Davies asked local official Hussein Issa, who was tasked at a previous meeting to make the necessary arrangements with the power authorities.

“No, nothing’s happened so far,” Issa replied, saying insurgents at nearby Mahmudiyah were continuing to disrupt electricity supplies to his district.

“It’s too dangerous to go to Mahmudiyah. Many cities in Iraq don’t have electricity. There is not enough power and because of that there’s a fight between some mayors,” he explained.

Fifteen minutes after the start of the meeting, district mayor Sheikh Ammash Kazem finally arrived and launched into a monologue about trouble he had been having with two of his deputies.

The sheikh then moved on to another matter, the need for more US money to complete rebuilding projects.

“Iraqi authorities are always complaining they don’t get enough money,” a US adviser at the meeting told the news agency.

“But often the money they receive disappears because of corruption and some projects are never carried out.”—AFP