Bringing transparency to Iraq’s crude world

Having just been named the fifth most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, you’d expect a sort of madness in the office of the internal investigation chief within Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Nearly all state revenue – thus motivation for corruption – comes from selling nearly 2 million barrels of oil per day.

But in the new office of Alaa Mohie el-Deen, the ministry’s inspector general, a post-2003 position, the desktop has only a computer, nameplate and bottle of...