Kroll, Kuchma, Cunek

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg seemingly put the cart before the horse yesterday when he said he'd offer to resign if the radar wasn't ratified. Many people had been expecting him to resign in July, when the Kroll report on Jiří Čunek's finances is ready. How could Schwarzy resign in Nov. if he had already quit in July? Perhaps he's signaling that Kroll will find Čunek to be as fresh as a lily instead of as foul as an abattoir, as most people assume. There would be precedent for this. Misha Glenny wrote in "McMafia" that after Maj. Mykola Melnychenko of Ukraine's SBU secret police slipped into the CR in 2002 with recordings implicating Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kuchma in the murder of a journalist, Kuchma hired Kroll to investigate. The great Kroll barely mentioned the murder in its report, but it claimed the tapes had been doctored. Investigative reporters, and the FBI, sided with Melnychenko. The tapes were for real. Kroll knew which side its bread was buttered on. [Czech Republic President Ukraine KGB Major]