Coup plot foiled in Iraq?

NY Times:

Up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general have been arrested over the past three days with some of them accused of quietly working to reconstitute Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, according to senior security officials in Baghdad.

The arrests, confirmed by officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security as well as the prime minister’s office, included four generals, one of whom, Gen. Ahmed Abu Raqeef, is the ministry’s director of internal affairs. The officials also said that the arrests had come at the hand of an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The involvement of the counterterrorism unit speaks to the seriousness of the accusations, and several officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security said that some of those arrested were in the early stages of planning a coup.

None of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the subject, provided details about that allegation.

But the arrests reflect a new set of political challenges for Iraq. Mr. Maliki, who has gained popularity as a strong leader but has few reliable political allies, has scrambled to protect himself from domestic rivals as the domineering influence of the United States, his leading backer, begins to fade.

Rumors of coups, conspiracies and new alliances abound in the Iraqi capital a month before provincial elections. Critics of Mr. Maliki say he has been using arrests to consolidate power.

But senior security officials said there was significant evidence tying those arrested to a wide array of political corruption charges including affiliation with Al Awda, or the Return, a descendant of the Baath Party, which ruled the country as a dictatorship for 35 years, mostly under Mr. Hussein. Tens of thousands of Iraqis died or were persecuted, including Mr. Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, by the Baath Party. It was outlawed after the American invasion in 2003.

...

A high-ranking Interior Ministry official said those affiliated with Al Awda had paid bribes to other officers to recruit them and that huge quantities of money had been found in raids. He said more arrests could be expected. Some of those arrested had been members of the now-illegal party under Mr. Hussein’s government.

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I am curious about the huge quantity of money found in the raids. I wonder if it is the proceeds from money stolen during the reconstruction period or from stolen oil. Tracing that money would be a very productive avenue for the government.

I suspect that if the coup was genuine, it was probably planned for after Obama inauguration and intended to speed the US exit from the country. The position taken by the Democrats with respect to withdrawing from Iraq has probably encouraged such plots.

This may be what commanders mean when they say the situation in Iraq is fragile still.