‘Benan Nicosia Sevan Days Now’ Redux

(Or is it ‘reflux‘?) The U.N. needs a good scrubbing and Bolton might just be the guy.

Sevan complains that he has been denied access to U.N. and other documents vital to his defense. Rosett endorses this — but argues it is par for the course. The Volcker committee has regularly denied vital documents to Sevan, reporters, investigating committees from the Congress and other interested parties.
Nor is this secrecy wholly innocent. Both Rosett and the New York Sun’s U.N.-watcher, Benny Avni, seem to think that Volcker will concentrate blame on a small number of U.N. officials, exonerate Annan of anything more serious than carelessness, and publish these findings on the eve of the September meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. These conclusions would likely then get overlooked amid the hoopla of major speeches by world leaders — notably the new Iranian president outlining his vision of an Islamist Middle East which is expected to be a highly controversial rerun of Yasser Arafat’s gun-toting address in the 1970s — and be pushed down the U.N.’s capacious memory hole.
Annan would then be able to change the subject to the reform of the U.N. He might even get the support of Bolton and the Bush administration to push reforms through. After which the elder statesman would make a graceful exit as the author of a revived and reformed world body.

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