The Asia Times has a typically-for them-long

analysis of the U.N.'s failure in Iraq.

UNreformable? United Nations drops the ball
By Alexander Casella

At a time when the UN is facing its most serious crisis in its 50-year history, the handling of the aftermath of the attack by a UN Secretariat that appears to be increasingly disconnected with reality and only concerned with self-preservation is turning, in the opinion of many observers in New York, into a saga of literarily all the ills that bedevil the organization.

They make a good case that the world lost a great man in Vieira de Mello, when the truck bomb killed him.

Vieira de Mello over the years served in Bangladesh, southern Sudan, Cyprus, South Lebanon, Sarajevo under siege, Cambodia and East Timor. Though cautious, he knew when to take risks; in Cambodia, as head of the repatriation operation in 1992, he would drive himself in his Toyota Land Cruiser to the Khmer Rouge areas to negotiate the safe passage of returnees.

...Vieira de Mello [w]as the rare, innovative action-oriented philosopher without whom no bureaucracy is ever inspired to reach beyond the confines of convention and routine.

It's writing worthy to be compared with Macauley's History of England, with its portrayals of greatness juxtaposed against incompetence.

The nomination of Walzer to head the ["independent" Iraq-accountability panel, tasked with making an audit of the circumstances and accountabilities surrounding the Baghdad bombing] was received with gasps of disbelief by many UN staff members. Unlike such figures as Brahimi, [former president of Finland, Martti] Ahtisaari or weapons inspector Hans Blix, who all had distinguished careers in their own governments before joining the UN and were credible in their own right, Walzer was an absolute product of the UN system with no background either as a political operator or in the running of large field emergencies. Many at the UN felt that the appointment of Walzer to head the investigation was the prelude to a whitewash. "He is not the person to uncover what he is not supposed to uncover," commented a UN staff member.

With the characters in place, the drama plays out logically.