Thursday, August 21, 2003
A previously unknown group hs claimed responsibility for the U.N. bombing in Iraq. Assuming it's true, and not just someone else trying to get in on the action, it does sound like Al Qaeda, who generally take a low-profile on responsibility, acting through what become front groups, as they did with the bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya last November, IIRC. In other words, they don't come right out and say, "Hi, we're Al-Qaeda and we did this."
Roger L. Simon harkens back to the UN's corrupt and corrupting Oil-for-Food program and puts his crime-writer mind to work coming up with a theory that perhaps someone was making an attempt at destroying the evidence.
While anything is possible, and Roger's theory is certainly fun to consider, I'm not one for looking for exceptional explanations where the more mundane will suffice. It seems to me that there is sufficient obvious cause not to go looking for hidden meaning, aside from the fact that whatever damning accounting which may exist is likely to be far more dispersed than one corner of a building in Baghdad.
Aside from the fact that the UN can't be that respected in Iraq, given the virtual rape of that country they were involved in, and then reluctant (to say the least) to stop, the fact that Sergio Vieira de Mello, under who's office the bomb exploded, was also the main man in the restructuring of East Timor (something that greatly angered the Islamists), and the fact that the Islamists themselves have no truck with the UN, either...
...The UN and the rest of the internationalist crowd just simply still refuses to get it. They dismissed offers of greater US protection, deluding themselves that their good intentions would protect them. The acts of the Islamists are completely contrary to the defense of "good intentions." They still don't get who's at war with them and why, and so they still have absolutely no clue about how to protect themselves. Self-delusion and wishful-thinking won't stop truck bombs.
Update: This article at the Times indicates that the investigation is focussing on some of the Iraqi guards who had been Saddam-men before the war and are now employed by the UN. Several are refusing to answer questions. The article points to indications of cooperation between the former regime and the Islamists - eminently plausible. If nothing else, they have much to discuss...secret lair decoration and the like...
NYT: Inquiry of U.N. Bombing Focuses on Possible Ties to Iraqi Guards
The official said all of the guards at the compound were agents of the Iraqi secret services, to whom they reported on United Nations activities before the war. The United Nations continued to employ them after the war was over, the official said.
The official said that when investigators began questioning the guards, two of them asserted that they were entitled to "diplomatic immunity" and refused to cooperate. Diplomats working in foreign countries are often entitled to immunity from prosecution by local authorities, but the official said the two guards could make no such claim.
Investigators are continuing to question the guards, the official said.
"We believe the U.N.'s security was seriously compromised," the official said, adding that "we have serious concerns about the placement of the vehicle" and the timing of the attack...
