Lawmakers say State Department blocks Iraq info

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four U.S. congressional committee chairmen on Friday accused the State Department of suppressing information about corruption inside Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the four senior Democrats said endemic corruption was fueling the Iraqi insurgency, endangering U.S. troops and undermining their chances of success.

California Rep. Henry Waxman of the House of Representatives oversight committee; California Rep. Tom Lantos of the foreign affairs committee; Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton of the armed services committee and Wisconsin Rep. David Obey of the appropriations panel said the State Department was stonewalling their attempts to get at the truth.

"The refusal of State Department officials to answer questions about the extent of corruption in the government of Iraq undermines our ability to work together to eliminate this source of support for the insurgency," said the letter.

"The American people and Congress deserve honest answers about the extent of corruption in the Maliki government and whether corruption is fueling the insurgency and endangering our troops."

The State Department rejected the lawmakers' claims.

"I don't think ... we're trying to hide any basic facts," spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

The letter referred to a congressional hearing last week in which a former Iraqi judge said government corruption was "rampant" and cost tens of billions of dollars.

The State Department representative at the hearing only responded to questions that portrayed the Iraqi government positively, the letter said, promising to answer others in a classified format.

The lawmakers said the State Department instructed officials last month not to answer questions in public about the Iraqi government's performance or its ability to tackle corruption.

Casey said there was nothing wrong with officials saying they would only discuss classified, confidential information behind closed doors.

The department also retroactively made secret two reports on corruption that had been widely distributed as "sensitive but unclassified," the letter said.

"The wholesale and even retroactive classification of all information is wrong and a misuse of the official classification procedures," wrote the lawmakers.

Casey said the department would see if more information could be released publicly with sensitive portions redacted.

The State Department is at loggerheads with several congressional committees over a range of issues, including the conduct of its lead security contractor in Iraq, Blackwater, which is under investigation over a shooting incident on September 16 in which 17 Iraqis were killed.