While global attention focuses on Islamic State (ISIS), recent mass protests throughout Iraq have prompted Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to promise what many long believed impossible: tackling the systemic corruption endemic to the Iraqi political system.
Moving decisively to cut the fat, al-Abadi slashed the Iraqi Cabinet by one-third. He abolished the positions of 11 ministers, 3 deputy presidencies, 3 deputy prime ministers and a total of 4 ministries altogether—although this, worryingly, includes the portfolios for human rights and women’s affairs.
An inquiry by an Iraqi parliamentary committee also found that former prime minister—and now a former vice president due to al-Abadi’s reforms—Nouri al-Maliki and other senior officials were responsible for the loss of Mosul to ISIS forces in June 2014. Al-Abadi has called for the court martial of the military officers who presided over the losses of Mosul and then Ramadi in 2015.
