Reporter: The significance of the question is that you are an important and prominent political leader in ISCI and you are observing reluctance of the religious authority and its criticism, and you actually resigned, but ISCI is still involved in the political action. How do you interact with this situation, and how do you understand its impact on the political process?

Mr. Mahdi: We must distinguish between two issues. That a person to be part of the democratic and the political process is something fixed, immobile, and we in ISCI consider ourselves as important partners in the democratic process and the political process. In regard our position on this ministry or the government is something else.

Reporter: Does the position of the Religious Authority target only the executive branch?

Mr. Mahdi: I said that the religious authority has the freedom to express its opinion and I am not going to analyze it now, and the religious authority has spokespersons and they can express its opinion. In regard to ISCI, it is part of the democratic process, it is not part of the government, and does not have a minister or a senior executive within the executive branch , but has under secretaries, has members in parliament.
That the withdraw from these sites does not mean a reluctant or escape but it is a position on the Ministerial Covenant formed under a ministerial program and ministerial curriculum and based on agreed and objected policies. In regard to the position of the religious authority, this of course represents the concerns of the Iraqi people as a whole, and ISCI's concern as well, so that when the position of the religious authority shifts from a position that has a lot of give and take, and provide support to a highly critical and harsh position, and the last statement that was issued after the occasion of the demonstrations had so many indicators. That things cannot continue as it is now, thus the religious authority and from its site of responsibility including, friendship and brotherhood, and advice things should be improved, modified, and understand these developments.

Reporter: But as you are partners in the political process, it was understood that the religious authority supported the re-election of the Prime Minister. Do you see that the religious authority began to withdraw its support and do you take advantage of this in your future campaigns?

Mr. Mahdi: I do not think that our statements and the statements of the religious authority used such expressions, or that they issued a withdrawal of support. This is no included in these statements. The religious authority is moving according to popular Iraqi support and it had said consistently "we are at one distance and we do not interfere in matters of detail." Politics has its own specialists. Politicians have the right to manage, organize, discuss, and dissolve the government. When the national consensus agrees to form a government then the religious authority supports this formation process, and when the negative things emerge then it will have a clear position on these things. The religious authority does not intervene in such issues, as we politicians interfere, or as you intervene as journalists.

Reporter: it is clear that all the partners have common position on the services, but is there any site to be held responsible for example, the bloc of Prime Minister, and thus the position of religious authority can be understood that it's directed against the State of law?

Mr. Mahdi: The government is formed upon agreements. Prime Minister and Ministers get the confidence of the Council of Representatives upon promises, upon programs, and upon estimations that this government will implement this program. The Covenant is not given to people, but it's given to programs, and that the program has yet to be approved, and was submitted many months after the formation of the government. This is a great imbalance, and a constitutional defect, as if the government lacks the legitimacy to this aspect. It's not the subject of voting on people, but voting on programs and the trial and the issue of accountability. That is called a Covenant, "I promise to do these things": to reconstruct the infrastructure, to increase the oil production, to enhance the security situation. This is the covenant and when it gets achieved we can get the confidence, otherwise the Council of Representatives reviews the matter. Many promises were made in these areas for many years with the availability of enormous physical potential; however, the result was the lack of success of these things. The issue is not to uphold people as much as changing the wrong policies that are still useful, still have not proved its success in the economic field, nor in the political sphere, not in the security field.

Reporter: You referred to the fact that one of the failures or promises that were not fulfilled is the security situation. The security situation is not like the political situation and the provision of services, because its linked with the souls of the citizens, Everyone is responsible, responsibility is varying, but everyone is responsible, and the question is how long will the security situation stay like this?

Mr. Mahdi: As long as we have do not have a correct security theory, and security in my opinion is still action and reaction, no one really knows the security issues. Especially the Council of Representatives and other officials to a large extent, the Presidency, no one really knows how to run the security file: forming brigades, deploying force, appointing commanders, all of these things take place in a way where there is no transparency. I do not think this is a security secret because U.S. and the others know about all these things, and that they have the tools to know these things, only the Iraqi people do not know, and the decision-makers do not know.

Reporter: You referred to two main issues; first that there are authoritarian tendencies in security decisions, and a lack of obvious security vision, means that there is a huge amount of military commanders with experience in the field. It is assumed we fight wars, is it reasonable that those cannot form a vision or perspective?

Mr. Mahdi: First, I have not used the term despotism in the resolution, I said the ignorance of others is what is happening, and there is experience, no doubt that Iraq is full of military expertise, but security is a theory and system. If you bring in engineers to a factory, it is possible that they have the highest efficiencies of the world in engineering, but if this factory does not have system then people will remain behind their desks, and that each one of these engineers will act on his experience away from the common system that unites the works of their factory.

Reporter: You said that there is information hiding; will Iraq turn into a secret organization state?

Mr. Mahdi: There are now many secret things, according to the standards of transparency, Iraq is very behind as a country, in all forms of transparency. Perhaps in the security issue there is a significant loss of transparency, we still live with the mentality of security, conspiracy, fear of the other, even though everyone knew this thing, you can go and find the secrets of Iraq on the Internet, but the people are not informing the officials with their problems or difficult circumstances and there is already a significant loss of transparency in all aspects.

Reporter: You mentioned in one of your statements that the President of the Republic has supervisory authorities and the position is not just honorific, and the President has to adhere to these authorities. Do you find the political conflict withdrawing or has it shifted the supervisory authorities to ceremonial?

Mr. Mahdi: Certainly the president has supervisory powers because he is the one that is responsible for ensuring the compliance with the Constitution and therefore must follow all policies, decisions and laws and their compatibility and suitability with the Constitution and therefore he should play this role. I think we exaggerate a lot in the role of the executive branch and in the role of the head of the executive branch. Iraq is not a presidential country and not an executive country, the system in Iraq is defined in the Constitutional parliamentary system, then we should find all the information and have all the debates in Parliament. If it was said that there is chaos in parliament, and there is chaos in the ministries, the power of the executive power is the power of Parliament, if Parliament is weak, the executive branch cannot be strong. So the right step is strengthening the Parliament, it is to give Parliament more power and authorities, and after that the Parliament gives the government the power, there is not an insidious way.

Reporter: The subject of the arrest warrant issued against MP Sabah Alsaadi drove my attention to the statement issued by you. It had clear criticism and clear diagnosis of areas of imbalance. In regard to the note, I think that's dangerous behavior in the relationship of the executive branch and the judiciary on the one hand and the legislative regulatory powers of the Council of Representatives on the other hand and freedom of opinion and expression. Where did you find arrest warrant in violation of this stuff?

Mr. Mahdi: I think this use of the penal law is wrong in Iraq. There are lots of laws issued in the period of Saddam and the articles of these laws were not linked to the prime minister, but referred to the president because Saddam was the President of the Republic. As article (225) refers to the President of the Republic and article (226) refers to the government and did not refer to the person of President, so if it referred to the government then the cabinet should meet and decide, otherwise the President decides, and investing the judiciary in this way is something wrong the MP might have made a mistake but to deal with him this way is wrong. There may be other measures but the situation does not require to warrant and investigate, we want to build a democratic country. Yes, there is an imbalance in the political discourse; there is also an exaggeration in the media but in a transition period, a period of adolescence where the country transitions towards democracy and towards freedom.

Reporter: How do you compare between the independence of regulatory bodies that are supposed to be independent between the previous and the current session?

Mr. Mahdi: There are attempts to control these independent bodies, but also there is the awareness that these bodies must be truly independent and this is a guarantee of the country, the concept of bodies and their independence if they lost their independence then they become executive service like any other departments. Therefore there is two understanding of this issue, the first is to keep theses bodies independent, and the second one is to control them and I think this is incorrect according to the Constitution.

Reporter: What are these attempts to control these bodies?

Mr. Mahdi: It is clear that couple of attempts took place, including the election commission, the position of the Council of Representatives in the recent issue of the integrity commission, and the attempts to control the central bank, etc. In all these things, it was clear that there were efforts to centralize things more and more and to extend to the various sites in a way that is not applicable with the Constitution and not in the interest of any party, including the executive. The executive branch cannot be the only executive power and everyone else is just parties recipients of feedback, the executive branch is an important part and has its own powers and the powers of this part must be respected, but on the executive to respect the authority and powers of the other parties, and with such respect the executive branch will not override nor the rest of the authorities and this is part of collision in the country.

Reporter: How do you comment on the appointment of the judge in charge of property disputes as the head of the integrity, and how to read some of the comments that this judge is close to Maliki?

Mr. Mahdi: Without mentioning names, when the Council of Ministers does not perform its duty, the Council of Representatives does not perform its duty, and the presidency, when the Prime Minister is the only part that can appoint or can issue an executive then we have been entered in the a circle of imbalance, today we are in a trouble because these figures increased a lot, and added to it the issue of the integrity and tomorrow will come the Electoral Commission, and then a malfunction takes place in the country.