IV 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 734 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the 
withholding of information relating to corruption in Iraq. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
OCTOBER 12, 2007 
Mr. WAXMAN (for himself, Mr. TIERNEY, Mrs. MALONEY of New York, Mr. 
LYNCH, Mr. YARMUTH, Mr. BRALEY of Iowa, Ms. NORTON, Ms. MCCOL-
LUM of Minnesota, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, and Ms. SCHAKOWSKY) submitted 
the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Over-
sight and Government Reform 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regard-
ing the withholding of information relating to corruption 
in Iraq. 
Whereas Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for 
Iraq Reconstruction, testified before the Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform on October 4, 2007, 
that the ‘‘rising tide of corruption in Iraq’’ is ‘‘a second 
insurgency’’ that ‘‘stymies the construction and mainte-
nance of Iraq’s infrastructure, deprives people of goods 
and services, reduces confidence in public institutions, 
and potentially aids insurgent groups reportedly funded 
by graft derived from oil smuggling or embezzlement’’; 
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•HRES 734 IH 
Whereas David Walker, the Comptroller General of the 
United States, testified at the hearing that ‘‘widespread 
corruption undermines efforts to develop the govern-
ment’s capacity by robbing it of needed resources, some 
of which are used to fund the insurgency’’; 
Whereas Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the former Commis-
sioner of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, testi-
fied at the hearing that ‘‘corruption in Iraq today is 
rampant across the government, costing tens of billions 
of dollars, and has infected virtually every agency and 
ministry, including some of the most powerful officials in 
Iraq’’, that ‘‘the Ministry of Oil [is] effectively financing 
terrorism’’, and that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ‘‘has 
protected some of his relatives that were involved in cor-
ruption’’; 
Whereas the Independent Commission on the Security Forces 
of Iraq, chaired by General James L. Jones, U.S.M.C. 
(Ret.), reported on September 6, 2007, that ‘‘sec-
tarianism and corruption are pervasive in the MOI [Min-
istry of Interior] and cripple the ministry’s ability to ac-
complish its mission to provide internal security of Iraqi 
citizens’’ and that ‘‘the National Police should be dis-
banded and reorganized’’; 
Whereas on September 25, 2007, the State Department in-
structed officials not to answer questions in an open set-
ting that ask for ‘‘Broad statements/assessments which 
judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or 
the ability/determination of the Iraqi government to deal 
with corruption, including allegations that investigations 
were thwarted/stifled for political reasons’’; 
Whereas Members of the Committee on Oversight and Gov-
ernment Reform asked Ambassador Lawrence Butler, 
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•HRES 734 IH 
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern 
Affairs, at the hearing whether ‘‘the Government of Iraq 
currently has the political will or the capability to root 
out corruption within its Government’’, whether ‘‘the 
Maliki Government is working hard to improve the cor-
ruption situation so that he can unite his country’’, and 
whether 
Prime 
Minister 
Maliki 
‘‘obstructed 
any 
anticorruption investigations in Iraq to protect his polit-
ical allies’’; 
Whereas Ambassador Butler refused to answer these ques-
tions at the hearing because ‘‘questions which go to the 
broad nature of our bilateral relationship with Iraq are 
best answered in a classified setting’’, although he did 
answer questions at the hearing that portrayed the Iraqi 
Government in a positive light; 
Whereas the State Department retroactively classified por-
tions of the report titled ‘‘Stabilizing and Rebuilding 
Iraq: U.S. Ministry Capacity Development Efforts Need 
an Overall Integrated Strategy to Guide Efforts and 
Manage Risk’’, which was released at the hearing by 
Comptroller General Walker and which addressed the 
commitment of the Iraqi government to enforce 
anticorruption laws; 
Whereas the State Department also retroactively classified 
two reports on corruption in Iraq prepared by the Office 
of Accountability and Transparency in the United States 
Embassy in Iraq; 
Whereas the United States has spent over $450,000,000,000 
on the war in Iraq and the President is seeking over 
$150,000,000,000 more; and 
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•HRES 734 IH 
Whereas more than 3,800 members of the United States 
Armed Forces have been killed in Iraq and more than 
28,000 have been wounded: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) as Congress considers the President’s re-
quest for over $150,000,000,000 more for the war 
in Iraq, it is essential that Congress and the people 
of the United States know the extent of corruption 
in the Iraqi government and whether corruption is 
fueling the insurgency and endangering members of 
the United States Armed Forces; 
(2) it was wrong to retroactively classify por-
tions of the report titled ‘‘Stabilizing and Rebuilding 
Iraq: U.S. Ministry Capacity Development Efforts 
Need an Overall Integrated Strategy to Guide Ef-
forts and Manage Risk’’, which was released by the 
Comptroller General of the United States at the 
hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Govern-
ment Reform on October 4, 2007, and other state-
ments that are embarrassing but do not meet the 
criteria for classification; 
(3) it is an abuse of the classification process 
to withhold from Congress and the people of the 
United States broad assessments of the extent of 
corruption in the Iraqi Government; and 
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