The larger questions are why Annan and his top aides and advisers felt they could with impunity deflect blame from their own failings and from the UN itself . . .

I can’t read anyone’s mind, let alone the polluted fog that passes for Mr. Annan’s.

But I’d guess he knew full well how corrupt an organization the UN is and has been for many decades. I’m betting he figured he could count on the UN’s Cloak of Corruption to shield him, and that nobody would come a’callin’. (“As it was, so will it always be.”)

That was his mistake: he didn’t factor Claudia into his equation.

Plus, what else would a deer caught in the bright, focussed beam of the Rosett headlights do other than to attempt to deflect, using all the tools at his disposal (obstructing, dissembling, stalling, lashing out, failing to prevent the destruction of evidence, etc.)?

. . . and why, apart from perhaps Sevan, they have gotten away with it.

Again, I suspect that the UN elite have gotten away with it because any honest UN person, a soul unwilling to turn a blind eye towards the the UN’s corruption if not willing to take advantage of it themselves, would long ago have had their careers seriously limited to insensitive areas, if not terminated outright.

That’s one of the great advantages of an opaque organization which has successfully sold the myth of its own moral purity; which has tons of money; which is staffed by lots of people who enjoy back-scratching and trading favors — and all this with no effective oversight!

So — how you did it, Claudia, I’ll never know.

Brian