Right-wingers like Bill O’Reilly who constantly “poo-poo” UN involvement in Iraq have siezed on the UN oil for food scandal for the past several months. They cite secret evidence which Ahmed Chalabi holds.

Now, in the post-”busted for being an Iranian spy” phase of Chalabi’s career, the US decided to just take all those documents he was goading over us. So, we have the evidence, right? Eh… not so much.

In fact, a “long-time acquaintance” of Chalabi happens to be the man investigating the UN Oil for Food scandal. He claims his hard drive was wiped out the same day Chalabi’s house was raided. The backup was lost too. The hackers ate his homework.

From the Telegraph article:

Last night, it emerged that on the same day as the raid, computer files belonging to the British consultant investigating the oil-for-food scandal were destroyed by hackers and a back-up databank in his Baghdad office wiped out.

Claude Hankes Drielsma, a British businessman and long-time acquaintance of Mr Chalabi, accused America and Britain of mounting a “dirty tricks” campaign to obstruct his inquiry.

There are so many possible motivations from all sides- is this a cover-up by the UN? The US? Was there even any evidence to begin with? (We are, after all, talking about Chalabi who was so helpful with all that info about WMD…)

Unfortunately, we may never know, but what’s clear as day is that Bill O’Reilly and others of his ilk have shot their credibility to hell by putting all their eggs in one Chalabi.