Schreiber in reruns ... .

This is a pretty good piece in the Post.

A few readers wanted to comment on the Schreiber case so here's a chance.

Having watched some of the testimony I still don't think Schreiber is very credible -- indeed, but for the admission made by Mulroney I would not have believed he got the money just because Schreiber said so.

That said, the judge is doing a careful and full job and is not limiting the investigation overly. We'll get a decent report and some idea what really happened.


Kelly McParland: The new Karlheinz, just like the old Karlheinz


A lot has happened in the world since we last had the benefit of seeing Karlheinz Schreiber on our TV screens, so it’s nice to know some things never change.

There he was this morning, giving testimony at the public inquiry he has done so much to bring about, the same cranky, irascible, self-centred former arms dealer we have all come to know over so many years. Desperate not to be sent back to Germany where they want to lock him in jail. Determined to get even with all those people who have been so mean to him.

All the old tricks were on display. Uninvited soliloquies on how badly he’s been treated by successive governments in Canada. Unprovoked personal attacks on anyone who impeded him from the sales commissions he deserved. Insulting asides about the questions he was expected to answer. An inability to explain why his story keeps changing. The new Karlheinz, just like the old Karlheinz.

Even the ritual pre-testimony pledge of big things to come, issued to reporters on the way in:“I can tell you one thing, if you think we have one scandal, no. I tell you it’s the biggest political scandal. The secret is it’s seven scandals in one. You can count on me. I’m not going to disappoint,” he said before heading in to take the stand.

Oh, if only it was true. The most interesting thing we learned from Schreiber on his first morning of testimony was how little he cares about money. Questioned by inquiry chief counsel Richard Wolson about the potential payoff of the famous Bear Head project he was so determined to land, he acknowledged he could have earned “at least $1.8 billion” if everything had gone as planned.$1.8 billion?

Wolson was so taken with that number he immediately asked for a lunch break. But not before Schreiber could make clear that, for him, it was never about money. Oh no. It’s about lives, don’t you understand? Canadian lives. Why, just this morning another Canadian casualty was announced in Afghanistan, a brave young woman only two weeks into her first tour.

Schreiber repeatedly invoked Afghanistan and Canadian casualties there to justify his anger at his treatment, and at the failure of the government to buy his products.“This is my huge anger with the Canadian government,” he said at one point. “This is my whole war with this government.”A military man who wouldn’t listen was an idiot. “The man has not the smallest clue what he is doing and is responsible for many Canadian deaths today.” And again: “I am deeply hurt when i see it every day ... dying people.”

Wolson carefully took Schreiber through a series of payments to various associates. $90,000 here, half a million there; some in cheques, some in cash; sometimes he got receipts, sometimes he didn’t; once he sent the money before he even got an invoice.

He shrugged it all off. It’s all there, somewhere, he maintained. Just look at the documents. I’m an honest guy.Wolson, it must be said, wasn’t entirely sympathetic. “Are you finished your outburst?” he inquired politely after Schreiber had gotten yet another complaint off his chest. “I’d like you, sir, to focus on my questions.”When Schreiber sought to use today’s tragedy in Afghanistan in his defence, Wolson wouldn’t let it pass.“You also stood to make a great deal of money” out of selling military hardware to Ottawa, he noted. Schreiber maintained he was already rich at that point.

“I had a wonderful life and it was completely ruined” by the controversy, he said.“Give me a number,” demanded Wolson.The answer: $1.8 billion. At least. Not that it was ever about the money.