Iraq News Now

Aiham Alsammarae was giddy. He had just escaped prison. Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, Iraq’s commissioner for public integrity, was investigating the former minister of electricity on a dozen charges. Radhi told Congress that $2 billion disappeared on Alsammarae’s watch.

The circumstances surrounding Alsammarae’s escape are the stuff of a spy novel. The New York Times  reported that, when asked about his escape, Alsammarae "laughed uproariously for 20 seconds. Then, recycling a famous line from an exchange about Al Capone in The Untouchables, Alsammarae said with undisguised glee: 'The Chicago way.'" Alsammarae had close connections to some in the U.S. government. He had earlier postured as a conduit to negotiate with insurgents, though this ultimately went nowhere.

Alsammarae denies corruption and argues that the Iraqi charges were politically motivated. Still, many Iraqis are bitter about the alleged American role in Alsammarae’s escape because they see it as an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. More than a decade later, the case still rankles Iraqis who accuse the U.S. of helping its citizens avoid accountability for alleged crimes.

It’s now deja vu all over again. According to 1001 Iraqi Thoughts , a top Iraqi affairs blog, authorities in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, arrested S. F. Shaker, a dual citizen who writes under the alias Anwar al-Zamani, for his part in an alleged extortion attempt against Iraqi Supreme Court Justice Faiq Zaydan. Behind the scenes, the State Department has quietly sought to negotiate Shaker’s pretrial release. Shaker’s supporters say the case is groundless, and that he is the victim of a power struggle between Iraqi nationalists and those who tilt more toward Iran. Iraqi figures say the evidence against him is solid. Rather than pressure Iraq or Iraqi Kurds to free him, the State Department should do what it does everywhere else: monitor prison conditions and the eventual trial.

Historical perspective is important. Anti-Americanism’s roots in Iran were not the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh, but rather what came next: As American companies flooded Iran, they negotiated immunity for Americans. This meant that if an American drove drunk and killed an Iranian, he would often pay no price and face no justice. Resentment exploded as Iranians were helpless in the face of the impunity of just a few bad apples.

This historical reality was one of the reasons why immunity became a third rail in Iraq as President George W. Bush negotiated a status of forces agreement. While not the fault of the U.S. directly, efforts by the State Department to run roughshod over Iraq law also rub an already raw wound left by Human Rights Watch (HRW). In 2006, HRW refused to provide Iraqi prosecutors with evidence they had collected about Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against the Kurds unless Baghdad agreed to abandon the death penalty. Iraqis saw the demand as condescending if not imperialist. While the death penalty might be a priority for HRW, it was not for Iraq. In effect, Kenneth Roth, an American who served as the group’s executive director, sought to blackmail Iraqis at the expense of justice for Saddam’s victims.

That Alsammarae not only escaped with American support but then openly laughed about it chafes Iraqis. Sprinkle this with Roth’s attempted blackmail and current efforts to win Shaker’s pretrial release risk lighting a tinderbox. Not only would short-circuiting the process be an affront to justice, but it would be a gift to an Iranian regime that seeks to spread its influence upon the catalyst of anti-Americanism. The U.S. should be Iraq’s ally in the fight against corruption. No man should be above the law.

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Michael Rubin ( @mrubin1971 ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.