Letter From Jordan (Page 3)

The steady erosion of civil liberties is matched only by the seismic growth of corruption. A large share of the private fortunes that fled war-torn Iraq has been deposited in Jordan, where it is leavening an underground economy that had already thrived off the UN-run Oil for Food program. Enormous villas have mushroomed in Amman's most fashionable districts, and luxury cars choke the city's roads. It is a gross and potentially destabilizing display of wealth in a country with an annual per capita income of $1,700, chronic unemployment and a population growth rate of 2.6 percent. And in harmony with Jordan's growing tolerance of corruption, this month King Abdullah agreed to overturn the 1992 conviction of Pentagon outcast Ahmad Chalabi, now a deputy prime minister in Iraq's new government, for his role in the collapse of a major Jordanian bank. "There is a new look to the corruption in Jordan," says journalist Abdullah Abu Romman. "Traditionally, we'd say the corrupt man is a thief. Now we look up to him as someone who was smart enough to avoid getting caught."

Enter the Shaheen brothers. From humble beginnings as West Bank vegetable merchants, Khaled, Riyadh and Akram Shaheen have established themselves as the Jordanian government's contractors of choice. According to a 1999 Times of London story, the Shaheens have known Abdullah since Khaled met him at a sports event in Dubai nearly ten years ago. Khaled, reported the Times, "went on to shower [the King] with gifts, including, allegedly, a Porsche." Not long after Abdullah's coronation, the government dropped Mercedes-Benz as its fleet automobile and logged a massive order with BMW--which had only months before tapped the Shaheens as its local distributor.

Since then, the Shaheens have rung up one major contract after another. In 2003 a Shaheen-controlled company was given a large share of a contract to train Iraqi policemen, even though it had no experience in such work (the value of the Shaheens' share is unknown, but the total cost of the operation could surpass $1 billion). In March 2004 a Shaheen subsidiary won a $72 million Pentagon contract to supply fuel to coalition forces in Iraq. The deal was canceled a week later because the company was unable to meet its obligations. It turned out the Shaheens knew nothing of the oil-supply business beyond what they learned by smuggling more than 7 million barrels from Iraq in 2003, according to an investigation by Britain's Financial Times and Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore. A government spokesperson said there is no relationship between King Abdullah and the Shaheens.

Business continues to come the Shaheens' way despite their poor credit history. In 1995 Jordan's Arab Bank sued the family to recoup $40 million in outstanding loans. Five years later the Standard Chartered Bank of London filed suit against the brothers for unpaid debts worth $77 million. "The Shaheens have been a factor for years," says a diplomat in Amman. "They have given the consistent impression that this is not a level playing field. And it doesn't help when they talk about having top-level protection."

Charges of corruption have even tainted Jordan's awqaf, the charitable trust that in Islamic countries is an important source of finance for social welfare programs. Ghazi Zaben, a first-term parliamentarian, recently opened an investigation into awqaf funding, and is also looking into allegations that the former minister of awqaf and Islamic affairs, Ahmad Hilayel, profited from hajj-related travel packages. Hilayel, who was replaced in a recent Cabinet shuffle, was attacked in Mecca late last year by pilgrims angered at what they said was price-gouging by companies related to him.

Zaben, a plastic surgeon by trade, said he launched his investigation because of discrepancies between what the awqaf was reporting as allocations to his district and what his constituents were actually collecting. "These numbers don't add up," says Zaben, leafing through a file of documents several inches thick. "At this point we can't say the awqaf is corrupt, though we do know [Hilayel's wife] has stakes in companies that arrange trips to Mecca and those crowds obviously thought they had a good reason to beat him up. That's why we're having these hearings."

Corruption probes in Jordan have a way of getting blocked, however, and Zaben says he has already been pressured by Hilayel's "good will messengers" to back off. "Frankly, I don't think I'll get very far," he says. "But it's worth it. Perhaps it will encourage other MPs to launch their own investigations."

Zaben represents the Central Badia district, a cluster of villages linked by rutted, single-lane roads. It is inhabited largely by the Beni Sakhr, a once-powerful tribe that has been diminished over the years by poverty entrenched by official neglect. Like many Bedouin tribesmen, the Beni Sakhr lack the skills needed to survive in a modern economy, and the state has failed to provide them with adequate education and vocational training.Zaben considers himself fortunate to have secured the state funds needed to build a new highway that will dramatically cut the time it takes to get from one end of Badia to the other. Projects like this, he says, help him compete with the Islamists for influence among his constituents. "People are now more religious," he says above the din of a steamroller smashing chunks of granite into a foundation for the new road. "What else do they have?"

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