A wise man once asked: “What do you get when you cross a Kouchner with a Bellemare?” Answer: a cauchemar, of course! Although, whether the Tribunal is shaping up to be a nightmare for Syria or March 14th is still a complete mystery, thanks to the investigation’s tight-lipped commissioner who gave an all-business, just-the-facts interview to al-Akhbar.
In between dodging questions about Mehlis (“I will not comment on previous leaders of the investigation”), Hizbullah (“I will not comment on political matters”), Siddiq (“We will have more to say about him down the road”), the Group of Thirteen (“This gets to the heart of the matter… but I can’t comment”) and the four generals (“Not my jurisdiction”), he did say that he was … optimistic. Actually, the exchange is worth quoting in full because it is rather comical.
Al-Akhbar: Will you find out who killed al-Hariri?
Bellemare: What I said to the Security Council is that I can’t promise anything… What I can say is that I am optimistic.
Al-Akhbar: On a scale of 1 to 10, how close are you to determining the killer?
Bellemare: I will not tell the perpetrators of the crime how close I am to [discovering] them. I know this isn’t very agreeable to the press, nor even to myself because I would like to show the extent of my investigation’s progress. However, among the readers of this interview may be some people who are implicated in the crime.
About the only thing that the good investigator would commit to expressing was that he would like to return one day to Lebanon for tourism.
Lak ya ahla w sahla bi Daniel effendi! š
Qifa Nabki 
We all want to go to Lebanon, where there are no cauchemars.
Love it and thanks, Joshua
Posted by Joshua Landis | February 11, 2009, 1:10 pmNotice he did not say he would like to return to Syria for tourism … what does that mean??
Should we worry?
Posted by Alex | February 11, 2009, 3:11 pm