You just can’t make this stuff up. Thanks to PostWatch for a pointer to this Washington Post story about UN weapons inspections that features this bizarre lede,
The United Nations launched perhaps its most important weapons inspections ever yesterday with a team that includes a 53-year-old Virginia man with no specialized scientific degree and a leadership role in sadomasochistic sex clubs.
Post writer James V. Grimaldi must have loved putting that lede together.
On the other hand, this does have a more serious side — the implication is that Hans Blix is picking inexperienced folks in order to avoid angering the Iraqis and reduce the chance of actually finding violations,
The former inspectors, who worked for the United Nations Special Commission created after the Persian Gulf War, say the new inspectors have been selected in part to avoid offending Iraq. These critics say that Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), is bypassing some experienced inspectors because they were opposed by Iraq as too aggressive in the earlier inspections.
Source:
Weapons Inspectors’ Experience Questioned. The Washington Post, November 28, 2002.