No doubt you've heard of the still-emerging scandal over the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq. The fact that the program was a hotbed of corruption is not news. What has only emerged quite recently is that the Iraqi regime was apparently using contracts from the program as bribes and pay-offs to various western politicians, journalists and other dignitaries.

You may not have heard a sidenote to this scandal -- the question of who will be in charge of the investigation and who controls the key documentary evidence upon which the investigation will be based.

We'll be following up on this in some detail over the next few days. And Shaun Waterman of UPI has a piece out today which is a good place to start to get a handle on what's going on in this case. The crux of the matter, however, is whether the investigation will be conducted through some transparent process or whether it will be conducted by a team under the control of ... well, can you guess? Ahmed Chalabi.