From the start, Iraq has been a hotbed of corruption and cronyism. That was, after all, among the charges leveled against former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

So it should not be surprising that these patterns continue after the fall of Saddam and the flow of billions of dollars designed to make Iraq safe and economically stable.

Indeed, Iraqi investigators have uncovered a huge pattern of fraud and waste within their own military that has led to the siphoning off of vast portions of some $1.27 billion worth of weapons deals.

The thievery, if that's what it is, is bad enough. But the greater damage comes to the overall task of rebuilding Iraq in a positive way.

International donors will swiftly become reluctant to funnel money into Iraq if they believe huge amounts of the aid might be drained off into shoddy deals, kickbacks and outright corruption.

This pattern is also harmful to the United States, which maintains a strong administrative presence in Iraq even though a technically sovereign Iraqi government is in place.

And as a practical matter, the reputation of the United States and the United Nations in this area is also far from sterling.

Members of Congress are still trying to find out about more than $200 million in questionable invoices from mega-contractor Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

Iraq's inspector general has also claimed that he has uncovered millions of dollars in fraud by U.S. contractors.

And a recent investigation led by Paul Volcker accused the United Nation's Oil-for-Food program chief, Benon V. Sevan, of having accepted $150,000 in kickbacks. Sevan denies the charge.

The same report says Alexander Yakovlev, a procurement officer, received kickbacks of nearly $1 million. He pleaded guilty to related charges the same day the report came out.

Volcker said that half the 4,500 companies that took part in the program had paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges.

The stench of corruption is pervasive. And the task of rebuilding a free and democratic Iraq is a daunting one under the best of circumstances.

The avalanche of looting, both domestic and international, only makes the task that much harder. The United States, both the White House and Congress, must insist that this house be put back in order before the cause is lost.