Oh, let's trot out the denials

U.N. denies team investigated Afghan bombing

The United Nations denied Tuesday that it is investigating the July 1 U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan that Afghans say killed more than 50 civilians at a wedding party, claiming it has conducted a humanitarian fact-finding mission.

What's remarkable is the destruction of language. First Kofi Annan says that the UN was "not involved in either an inquiry of an investigation...." A few paragraphs later, he is quoted as saying, "The U.N. team went there to see what had happened...." [Emphasis mine.] That's not an investigation?

Why wasn't it an "investigation"? Well, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard says, "Our people weren't qualified to do an investigation."

Well, the part about qualifications is certainly accurate.

A later story plays even looser with the words:

The United Nations insisted the U.N. group that went to the village shortly after the incident was not an "investigative body"; it refers to it as a fact-finding team.

Now the spokesman is "unclear as to the exact mandate of the mission to the village...."

Last, there's this follow-up that says:

The United Nations handed over a report on the U.S. airstrike that killed a large number of Afghan villagers to Afghanistan and the United States but will not make it public, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

It will be up to U.S. and Afghan authorities, who are conducting a joint investigation of the July 1 attack in Uruzgan province, to release the U.N. report compiled by humanitarian workers who arrived on the scene hours after the airstrike, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

[Emphasis mine.]

Oh, puh-leez, since when does the UN wait for permission from anyone to release a nasty report? The implication here is that the "leaked" report was full of it.