The Nation's David Corn just got his hands on a report that says Nouri Al-Maliki is corrupt.

according to the working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the Maliki government has failed in one significant area: corruption. Maliki's government is "not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws," the report says, and, perhaps worse, the report notes that Maliki's office has impeded investigations of fraud and crime within the government.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, Surprise!"

I'm sure every word in the report is true, but Corn leaves three crucial questions unasked and unanswered.

1. Why is this report appearing the very same week that the White House is openly engineering a coup against Al-Maliki so they can replace him with terrorist-assassin Iyad Allawi? Is this report an integral part of the coup propaganda?

2. Was it Bush's CIA who taught Al-Maliki how to run a thoroughly corrupt government? After all, that's SOP for the CIA, from the Shah of Iran to Manuel Noriega. It's also SOP for the Bushes - and remember Poppy Bush once ran the CIA.

3. How much of this corruption is also present in the U.S. government, both in our bureaucracy in Iraq (read the new Rolling Stone expose) and here in the U.S.? Since Bush took over, hundreds of billion$$ have disappeared without a trace at home and abroad, and virtually no one has been prosecuted, thanks to a thoroughly corrupted White House (and Justice Department) that has also "impeded investigations of fraud and crime within the government."

So the question must be asked: was my friend David Corn duped by Ambassador Ryan Crocker? 

C'mon David, keep digging for the whole truth - not just the little shiny piece the Busheviks want you to see. The whole truth is ugly, but it has to be told.