On
Syria, French
FM Says He
Knows What UN
Report Says,
Jumping the
Gun
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 12
-- For weeks
the UN has
said its
report on
chemical
weapons in
Syria will
only say if
they were
used, not by
whom. Since
August 24 the
UN has said it
would release
its report as
soon as it was
ready.
Now,
from
statements by
Laurent
Fabius in AFP
this morning,
and
orchestrated
leaks last
night, neither
it true.
Fabius
says the UN
report will be
released on
Monday -- in
four full or
five
days -- and
will implicate
Assad.
First,
the report
wasn't
supposed to
implicate (or
"finger,"
as one UN
scribe
pre-spun it)
anyone. See
Inner City
Press story, here.
Second,
why would
France get a
heads-up about
the report,
and
why would
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon delay
its release
for five
days?
The
answer to the
second appears
to be: pure
politics.
With US
Secretary
of State John
Kerry meeting
with his
Russian
counterpart
Sergey
Lavrov today
-- Fabrius brags
of meeting
with Kerry
first, the
pre-spin of
the UN report
never far away
-- to release
the UN report
now would
waste it.
Better
to play the
card AFTER the
Kerry - Lavrov
meeting, the
thinking seems
to be, to gain
maximum impact
for what now
may be seen as
its dubious
findings.
Why
dubious? This
pre-release
hardly bodes
well. Plus,
inconvenient
as
such
connections
may be for the
UN, this is
the same
organization
that
exonerated
itself for
bringing
cholera to
Haiti, then
refused to
comment when
its own
experts
reversed their
findings. Click
here for
Inner City
Press cholera
stories.
The truth, it
seems, doesn't
matter. Timing
is everything.
Watch this
site.
Footnotes:
Fabius
saying the UN
report will
"implicate"
Assad emanated
from the shop
of the WSJ's
UN
correspondents,
cited to
@CNNbrk. But
at that time,
it wasn't ON
the @CNNbrk
feed. Some
appear to know
the
news before it
happens, or
the useful
content of UN
reports before
they are
released.
The UN
should have to
answer on this
on Thursday.
But,
conveniently,
it seems its
whole noon
briefing it
given over to
UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous. We'll
have more on
this. Watch
this site.
, 
