It Goes On

For those who may have missed it, this report from John Solomon and Desmond Butler details how “Annan Failed to Disclose Key Contacts.” Of course it’s not difficult for me to know what those contacts are without even reading article. I can’t tell you how odd it has been for me, a lifetime novelist and screenwriter, to have been privy to information, some of which I have been asked to keep confidential, that could lead to the downfall of the Secretary General of the United Nations. It’s not exactly like keeping secret somebody’s deal at Warner Brothers. In any case, for those who still are not up-to-speed on this sad story, the gist is here:

Annan’s omissions last November raised credibility concerns with the chief investigator, Robert Parton, that persisted even after Annan later provided his recollections about the meetings. Investigators had uncovered the contacts in calendars recovered from computers, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Parton sought to make an issue of Annan’s veracity, concluding the U.N. chief wasn’t initially forthcoming and his story evolved as new facts emerged. Parton also noted Annan’s account sometimes conflicted with other witnesses deemed credible. Drafts of Parton’s report, however, were substantially revised.

The three-member committee that supervised Parton used a different tone when it laid out the discrepancies in the version of the report released to the public two months ago. “He had checked the records and now remembered the meeting,” the final report said about one of the meetings Annan hadn’t originally disclosed.

The final report also didn’t mention that Annan had originally denied knowing one of his son’s business associates with whom he had had lunch. Nor did it mention that the business associate testified that he specifically discussed Kojo Annan’s interest in doing business in Iraq with the U.N. chief.

Lanny Davis, known to most of us as one of Clinton’s more skillfull defenders during the impeachment period, is now Parton’s attorney in this matter. I would be curious to know what Davis, a life long liberal the way this apostate blogger was, thinks about the situation in Turtle Bar. There was no greater pillar of the liberal church than the UN. When I was young I revered it and the people who worked there. Well, la vie continue, does it not? What can one say?