Two Stories Behind One Crime

Jihad Omer Ahmed

Behind every news report exposing corruption, two stories are hidden. The first is the one those in power always want to tell loudly: the story of the “criminal” who supposedly suddenly became a monster. But the real and more disturbing story—the one that deserves the full spotlight—is the story of the crippled and blind system that allowed that monster to grow in the first place.

When we hear that Manaf Abdulmunim left more than 115 billion Iraqi dinars in unexplained wealth, or when we see that Adnan Jumaili amassed millions of dollars, large quantities of gold, and dozens of luxurious mansions inside his residence, the fundamental question is not how these men managed to become so extraordinarily greedy. Rather, the more absurd question is this: Where were the oversight institutions and anti-corruption committees all this time? Were they on an endless winter vacation, or were they simply asleep?

This is the greatest mockery of the very concept of governance: a system that fails to notice the disappearance of such enormous amounts of public wealth until the official himself has had enough—or until he falls out with his political party.

If we examine this situation through the critical analytical lens commonly adopted by international media outlets such as the BBC and CNN, it becomes strikingly clear that these institutions were never fundamentally designed to protect public assets. Instead, they function more like a bank without doors or guards, allowing every official who reaches a position of power to take their share—and their party’s share—with ease, without triggering a single alarm.

The problem is not merely the misconduct of individuals; it is the complete collapse of the very safeguards that were supposed to prevent theft. When a country’s auditing and financial oversight system is so weak that billions of dinars and hundreds of property deeds can pass through its filters unnoticed, punishing a single individual amounts to nothing more than cleaning the glass of a window in a house that has already burned down and collapsed.

As long as these hollow institutions continue to operate on the same partisan and dysfunctional foundations, arresting one official after another will do nothing more than create room for the next thief to take their place. The system itself has become an endless factory for producing looters while protecting them under the cover of the law.