Leader of committee to out Iraqis with “links” to CIA has Mahdi Army past

Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr (Source: AP)

In a story that evinces the deep stigma still attached to any perceived link with the United States, Iraqi Kurdistan’s AK  News reported on Friday that Iraqi MP Hakim az-Zamili, a Sadrist in the Iraqi Parliament’s Security Committee, was instituting an investigation to out those Iraqis in government he believes have links to the CIA.

Although the Islamic State of Iraq has been behind recent violence in the country, Zamili alluded to his belief that the U.S. is directly behind continuing violence in Iraq, through the paying off of security officials, who allow these attacks to happen. He is quoted as saying “there are senior (security) officers who receive salaries from the CIA…When the investigation is completed we will reveal who receives these salaries.”

Pointing to a range of boogeymen – the CIA, Mossad, etc., the Sadrists have a pattern of placing all blame for Iraq’s woes on outside forces.  However, Zamili seems to also have a rather personal agenda, as he was arrested by U.S. forces in February 2007 in a rather high profile raid on the Iraqi Ministry of Health, part of the landmark beginning of what has become known in American parlance as “the Surge.”

At that time Zamili was a deputy Health Minister, and was accused of some rather gruesome things, including facilitating the formation of  Mahdi Army death squads within the ministry.  The militiamen who were brought in essentially acted as the ministry’s security detail, and are thought to have murdered hundreds at the height of the sectarian crisis in the two years leading up to Zamili’s arrest.

Charges for Zamili were dropped in 2008, after a leading witness in the case conveniently disappeared. Zamili was subsequently released. He later became a candidate in the 2010 Parliamentary elections, where he won the seat he has now.

Sources:

AK News: Committee to Reveal Names of Iraqi Officials Working for CIA

BBC News Arabic : Iraq: Ministry of Health Undersecretary Arrested 

New York Times: Murky Candidacy Stoke’s Iraq’s Sectarian Fears