Stewart Stogel
Friday, Oct. 21, 2005

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UNITED NATIONS -- The long awaited United Nations report on the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was released Thursday evening to mixed reviews.

Hariri, long a critic of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, was killed by a suicide bomber as his motorcade passed through downtown Beirut on February 14, 2005.

Hariri and 22 others were killed by the massive explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital.

Almost immediately, Lebanese authorities and some inside the White House were pointing fingers at Syria, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Bush administration, seeing an opportunity to pressure the Syrian government believed to be actively aiding insurgents in Iraq, helped Lebanese authorities get most of Syria's 40,000 troops to vacate Lebanon.

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Damascus, "at the request of Lebanese authorities," had been the dominant force inside Lebanon for more than 15 years, during which they were successful in curbing a long-running, vicious civil war.

With civil strife inside the country diminishing, there had been growing momentum inside Lebanon to get Syria to remove its forces. It had been a move Syria refused to consider, until the Hariri assassination.

The report, by German investigator Detlev Mehlis, provides more details on the actual assassination, but contained no smoking gun.

It does criticize Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, who Mehlis explains sent a "letter to the Commission which was proven to contain false information."

While some arrests related to the assassination have been carried out, the report added:

"The full picture of the assassination can only be reached through an extensive and credible investigation that would be conducted in an open and transparent manner to the full satisfaction of the international coommunity."

Syrian diplomats in New York and Security Council officials refused to comment on the report.

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