Fighting corruption is more difficult than ISIS in Iraq, says chief diplomat

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – As one of the priorities of the current Iraqi government, fighting corruption sometimes gets more difficult than fighting the so-called Islamic State, a terror group that Iraqi and Kurdish forces defeated a few years ago, the country’s foreign minister said in the US on Friday.

The remarks by Deputy Iraqi Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein came during a conversation held by the United State Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, DC.

Speaking of the priorities of the government, Hussein said the cabinet gives particular attention to tackling corruption.

“We are suffering from corruption as we suffered from ISIS,” the minister said, adding fighting against people who commit corruption is a “tough fight”.

“Fighting corrupt people is not easy; sometimes, it is more difficult than fighting ISIS,” Hussein said, calling the analogy “strange”.

Controlling large swathes of the country for three years, ISIS's so-called caliphate was toppled by the Iraqi forces and Kurdistan Region's Peshmerga with the training and air cover from the US-led coalition against the terror group in 2017.

ISIS committed numerous atrocities and war crimes during its reign, which the UN recognized as "genocide", particularly those against the Yezidi community. 

Soon after its inauguration in October last year, the government faced one of the biggest corruption scandals in its history when it was revealed that $2.5 billion had been withdrawn from the tax authority’s accounts. The government later called the affair “the heist of the century”.

Iraq is ranked 157 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 2022.

The minister is currently on an official visit to the country to discuss a range of topics related to the value of Iraqi currency against the US dollar, the bilateral relations between the countries as well as foreign direct investment and energy.