Yesterday, the American Prospect, where I work, exclusively obtained a confidential UN document that identifies the 17 individuals most responsible for war crimes in Darfur. One man named is Salah Gosh, who is the head of Sudan's National Security and Intelligence Service and often credited with devising Khartoum's strategy of counterinsurgenc y-by-genocide in Darfur.

Gosh is also a known intelleigence asset to the CIA. (Ken Silverstein of the LA Times broke that story last April.) And now that he has been officially identified as violating a prior UN security council resolution ordering him to cease committing war crimes, he is liable to be subjected to targeted sanctions and a travel ban. Which, for one, might make it harder for the CIA to fly him down to Langley as Silverstein reported.

Here are the first few grafs of my prospect piece on the subject. Below the fold are a few more excerpted paragraphs, but you have to click over to the Prospect to read the article in full:

How important is a war-on-terror intelligence asset—important enough that his clear complicity in genocide should be overlooked? That’s the question raised by the presence of a name on some United Nations documents just obtained exclusively by the Prospect .

Here’s the story. After many long months of international paralysis on Darfur, the first two weeks of February have seen a flurry of activity that may presage a new global effort to confront the ongoing genocide there. U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton pledged to use the month of February, when America has the presidency of the Security Council, to move “fast” and “far” on Darfur.

And on February 6, the 15-member council unanimously supported a U.S. decision to start planning for a possible UN peace-keeping force in the region. A week later, Kofi Annan traveled to the White House to discuss Darfur with President George W. Bush. Three days after that, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she wanted the Security Council to vote to send peace-keepers to the region in the near future. So it would seem that backed by American leadership, the UN is finally pressing ahead on Darfur.

But before we heap hosannas on the Bush administration for its newfound resolve, let’s wait until the Security Council comes out with a list of names of Sudanese individuals to be placed under sanction for their role in the genocide. For that moment will be the real test of the Bush administration’s determination to prevent the further destruction of Darfur and to hold accountable those guilty of plotting and carrying out the genocide.

To see the article in full, click over to the article here or visit the home-page: www.prospect.org