Surge net health minister in Iraq funding Sadr militia

NY Times:

Iraqi and American troops arrested the second highest official in the Iraqi Health Ministry on Thursday, charging that he funneled millions of dollars to rogue Shiite militants who kidnapped and killed Iraqi civilians.

The United States military said in a statement that the official was suspected of using his position to run a rogue unit of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that claims loyalty to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr. The statement accused the official of flooding the Health Ministry’s payroll with militants, embezzling American money meant to pay for Iraq’s overworked medical system and using Health Ministry “facilities and services for sectarian kidnapping and murder.”

The military’s statement did not identify the official, but several Iraqi government officials said he was Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili, a Shiite with longstanding ties to the Sadr organization. An Interior Ministry official said the authorities in recent weeks had come to believe that Mr. Zamili was using government ambulances to ferry weapons and militants across Sadr City, hiding them from American raids.

Mr. Zamili’s detainment was the latest of several high-profile arrests or killings of commanders from the Mahdi Army in recent weeks. He was the fifth Iraqi deputy or cabinet level official to be arrested and charged with corruption since 2003, according to Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, and the first known example of a senior Iraqi official charged with directly contributing to the country’s convulsive sectarian violence.

He was arrested as new Iraqi Army and police checkpoints appeared all over Baghdad as part of the new security plan for the city. Though it was unclear whether Mr. Zamili’s arrest was part of the new plan, it underscored the challenge that American troops faced as they tried to secure the capital while relying on an Iraqi government with questionable loyalties.

The Health Ministry is one of six ministries controlled by officials affiliated with Mr. Sadr. And even as Iraqi hospital officials complain of medicine and equipment shortages, the ministry has often been the site of dramatic kidnappings and killings.

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The arrest also suggest a new level of seriousness on the part of those participating in the surge. It is also a signal to those in the US who think the war is hopeless, that effective action can be taken against the perps in Iraq. This is pretty dramatic action that has probably been stalled in the past by the Iraqi government. Maliki is looking more like a serious man at this point.