Iraq uncovers 50,000 ‘ghost soldiers’

Iraq has uncovered the existence of 50,000 “ghost
soldiers”, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said,
promising a crackdown on corruption.
“The prime minister revealed the existence of 50,000
fictitious names” in the military, said a statement from
Abadi’s office on Sunday after a session of parliament.
A parliament statement said the premier scrapped the
50,000 jobs, equivalent to almost four full army divisions.
Abadi’s spokesperson Rafid Jaboori said that the
investigation started with a thorough headcount during the
latest salary payment process.
“There are two kinds of ‘fadhaiyin’,” one experienced
officer in the security forces said, using a word which,
literally translated, means “space men”, and refers to the
fictitious soldiers crowding the payroll.
“The first kind: each officer is allowed, for example, five
guards. He’ll keep two, send three home and pocket their
salary or an agreed percentage,” he told AFP.
“Then the second and bigger group is at the brigade level.
A brigade commander usually has 30, 40 or more soldiers
who stay at home or don’t exist,” the officer said.
“The problem is that he too, to keep his job as a brigade
commander, has to bribe his own hierarchical superiors
with huge amounts of money,” he said.
The officer explained that, for those reasons, the thousands
of soldiers who defected or were killed this year across
Iraq were rarely declared as such.
The US, which occupied the country for eight years, has
spent billions of dollars training and equipping Iraq’s
military.
Since taking office in September, Abadi has sacked or
retired several top military commanders, and Sunday’s
announcement suggests he wants to tackle the graft and
patronage that prevailed under his predecessor Nouri al-
Maliki.