Abadi vows anti-corruption drive after Sistani criticism

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi on Saturday pledged to stamp out corruption this year amid criticism from the nation’s highest Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, that his government has done little to combat graft.
Sistani, a reclusive octogenarian, wields authority few Iraqi politicians would openly challenge.
Corruption within the officers corp was one of the reasons of the Iraqi army’s failure to oppose the sweaping advance of Daesh in 2014, according to the findings of an ad-hoc parliamentary committee.
“2016 is the year of eliminating corruption, there is no such things as acceptable corruption and non-acceptable corruption,” Abadi said in a speech at a ceremony to celebrate the anniversary of the Iraqi police force in Baghdad. Sistani on Friday renewed his calls to the government to reform the administration and combat corruption.
“A year has lapsed and nothing has been achieved on the ground,” his representative, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Safi, told the worshippers in a sermon in Kerbala, a holy Shiite city south of Baghdad.
Separately, Iraq’s joint operations command denied on Saturday that Turkish forces based in northern Iraq had been attacked by Daesh or had clashed with the militants.
“The joint operations command denies there was a terrorist attack on the position of Turkish forces in Bashiqa by the terrorist Daesh recently,” said a news flash on state television, referring to a military base near Mosul.