THE Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers’ workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “evisceration” of Iraq’s top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department’s policies “not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government,” Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy “effort against corruption — including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency — was little more than ‘window dressing,’” he added.

Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the administration takes the issue of corruption seriously and pointed to its recent appointment of Lawrence Benedict as coordinator for anti-corruption initiatives at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Benedict’s appointment “is another demonstration that we are working at very senior levels to help the Iraqis deal with this issue,” Casey said. “Any assertion that we have not taken this issue seriously or given it the attention it deserves is simply untrue.”

The Office of Accountability and Transparency, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq’s anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki’s office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.

(SD-Agencies)