Anyone who cares about the U.N. will want to see a thorough investigation of the U.N.’s behaviour throughout the period of the Iraq-sanctions regime. Of course, people who don’t give a hoot about the U.N. will also want to see an investigation of the organization, so long as it embarrasses and discredits it.
Which side is William Safire on? Not sure. He does seem to be hot on the trail of the corruption story. But, you know, it would be easier to take Safire seriously if he mentioned that Chalabi has been sitting on some very important documents formerly in the possession of the Ba’ath party in Iraq.
It doesn’t matter here whether you think Chalabi really is corrupt or whether you think he’s the finest Arab since Mohammad. At the very least, it creates an appearance of impropriety that Chalabi – wanted for embezzlement, suspected of being an Iranian spy, and whose past operations are known to have involved document forging – has had these documents in his exclusive possession for an awfully long time.
If Safire cares about the integrity of an investigation partially dependent on these documents, why does he not utter a peep about the issue? Sorry I keep going on about this. But it’s been – what? – three columns on this issue now, and he still hasn’t gotten around to addressing this point.
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