  urlLink Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Salam Pax: Baghdad Blogger : "In addition, everybody seems to have quickly forgotten the allegations over the way Orascom got the deal for central Iraq in the first place.
Kickbacks, baksheesh and nepotism. Eh, who cares? 'Make your fingers play' is what they tell you, and for deals that big they may well have made huge trunks full of money play, not just their fingers.
And in this part of the world no one was surprised when some subcontractors went to governing council members' relatives, or when ministers are too closely related to the GC member who elected them. Same-same; it is just too difficult to change social structures overnight. We have a saying: 'Me and my brother against my cousin, and me and my cousin against a stranger. ' A cousin is anyone with the same family name. Who told you it was only the south of Iraq that was tribal? " 
