Financial contracts can be signed, unsigned, and often canceled after signing. Naturally, the cancellation of the contract hurts the prestige of both parties to the contract, since speculation immediately begins to appear that the canceling party is an inconsistent partner, whose promises it is better not to trust in the future, and the party whose purchase of products or services was canceled raises suspicion of the quality plan of the supplied goods. This situation leads to numerous discrepancies between partners and makes it possible to raise the question of the effectiveness of further business contacts. The situation is even more complicated when friction arises between the parties that have entered into military-technical contracts, and at the same time there are statements from one of the parties that the “one-person” contracts have been canceled.
This is exactly what happened not so long ago in terms of the implementation of a contract for the supply of Russian weapons to Iraq for a total of about $ 4.2 billion. The Russian side was supposed to supply the Iraqi army with Mi-28N helicopters and Pantsir-1S complexes. At the same time, the contract itself was signed on October 9, 2012 with the direct participation of the prime ministers of the two countries, Dmitry Medvedev and Nuri al-Maliki. And this contract was called the largest agreement between Moscow and Baghdad since the so-called democratic forces came to power. It would seem that military-technical cooperation between Russia and Iraq is gaining momentum again and looks promising.
However, further foreign news agencies, in particular AFP (France-Presse), unexpectedly published material that thundered like a bolt from the blue. The material quoted the representative of the Iraqi government, Ali Mousavi, that Iraq had decided to cancel the deal with Russian military-technical enterprises, since a certain corruption component was unexpectedly revealed in the deal. From which side this corruption component manifested itself, Mr. Mousavi did not specify, thereby giving rise to numerous reflections that, most likely, the root of the evil of corruption has settled somewhere in Moscow, and therefore Iraq at the last moment decided to leave the deal with Russia.
But the events that followed immediately after Mousavi's statements showed that in the Iraqi government almost every representative and minister can have a separate opinion, which he can state, extrapolating it to the entire Cabinet of Ministers. In particular, Iraqi Defense Minister al-Dulaimi called an urgent press conference. According to him, the deal with Russia is going according to plan, and there is no talk of any cancellation of the contract. Al-Dulaimi assured the audience that, in fact, there was a delay in sending documents on the military-technical contract concluded with Russia to the anti-corruption committee, and this delay is not really fatal for the continuation of work on fulfilling the obligations taken.
At the same time, the Russian Cabinet of Ministers and the Rosoboronexport office reported that no official papers have been received from Baghdad regarding the cancellation of the contract from the Iraqi side, and work on the implementation of plans for military-technical cooperation between the two countries is in full swing.
It would seem that the incident is over, and it is time to put an end to this trial, while looking questioningly at Ali Mousavi, but in fact the story has a continuation. This continuation was connected with the words of a member of that very anti-corruption committee in Iraq, which was discussed above, and where the necessary documents were not received on time. Khalid Alvani, who is from among the representatives of the anti-corruption parliamentary service in Iraq, made statements, in particular, noted that the organization he represents demanded that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suspend the implementation of the contract. According to Alvani, the anti-corruption agency has determined that the contract on the part of Iraq has a relationship with forces that, quote: "can be implicated in corrupt activities."
After Khalid Alvani's statements, the representative of the parliamentary defense committee, Hassan Jihad, also spoke, saying that in the near future a new delegation would be sent from Baghdad to Moscow, which would take part, let's say, in re-signing the contract on new terms. What these new conditions will be is not yet clear, but it is clear that all these perturbations with suspension-non-suspension of the work of the contract are manifested by no means by chance.
In this regard, political scientists express several possible reasons for what happened. Pressure from Iraq's American partners is seen as the main reason. The fact is that the United States sells weapons worth almost $ 12 billion to Iraq, and could sell even more if it were not for the desire of the Iraqi government to purchase cheaper and more unpretentious Russian military equipment. Obviously, Washington could not pass up such a deal that could have brought the US budget far from superfluous billions. It's all in the spirit: we, you know, have fully democratized you, and you continue to “shop” militarily in Russia … Big Brother's actions by the Iraqi authorities, freshly fashioned from what was, definitely caused bewilderment. So I had to urgently look for a reason for claims to the legal platform when concluding a contract. If it were not for the idea of a corruption component, they could find poorly visible seals and signatures in the wrong places.
But although the American lobby in this case is quite likely, Iraq, in fact, found itself in a situation where it cannot demonstrate its violent temper with Russia either. The new Iraqi leadership should not forget that Russia has recently written off its multibillion-dollar debt to Iraq. Yes - even if the debt for the supply of weapons to Saddam Hussein's "regime" has been canceled, but in terms of doing international business, this changes matters. As you know, debt by payment is red, and if this debt was written off, then you need to take a constructive step in response. And such a step could well become the very conclusion of a Russian-Iraqi contract worth $ 4.2 billion without any insinuations.
There is, however, another version of why the Iraqis started a chamomile fortune-telling in terms of "annul - do not annul." This version boils down to the fact that Baghdad is concerned about such resonant changes in the top leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Iraqi authorities could well have thought that if the contracts were concluded under the old leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry, which turned out to be involved in corruption scandals, then it may have had a hand in the Russian-Iraqi contract. As they say, trust, but verify. And if so, then it is difficult to reproach the Iraqis with something: if no corruption loopholes have been identified and will not be, then the contract can be easily renegotiated. Of course, there will be a hassle, but here, as they say, nothing personal - just business. Not the Iraqis were the first, not they, and probably the last …
In general, it remains to wait for the new Iraqi delegation in Moscow, and how smoothly the new consultations on the implementation of contractual obligations will go. If the situation passes calmly enough, then, most likely, the reason, indeed, was in corruption suspicions, but if a serious scandal flares up, then both the version that the corruption suspicions were justified, and that the Russian-Iraqi contract trying to put their hand on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
