Henry Farrell quotes an Inside Higher Ed article about Owen Cargol, until recently the head of American University in Iraq:
The university’s lofty aspirations, as espoused on its Web site, make the selection of its first chancellor all the more puzzling. Owen Cargol, who took the helm at AU-Iraq in 2007 and resigned in late April of this year, had a checkered past that could have been revealed to university organizers with a simple Google search. The sexual harassment scandal that brought down Cargol at Northern Arizona University in 2001 was well publicized, in all of its explicit detail, but apparently never came to the attention of the U.S. officials who trusted Cargol to help reshape the Middle East. [...]
Cargol’s 2001 resignation stemmed from allegations made by a Northern Arizona employee who alleged that Cargol, while naked in a locker room, grabbed the employee’s genitals, the Arizona Republic reported. In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.”
That'd be the creepy assaulter kind of guy, I guess. This information literally comes up on the first page of results if you Google the guy's name, so it's pretty puzzling that you'd let him slip through the cracks. But given the general conduct of the operation in Iraq, I suppose it's not all that surprising.
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Heads in the Sand
I think it's easy to see why the administration that brought you Abu Ghraib would have deemed this guy to be a perfect fit.
Posted by Glenn | June 11, 2008 9:23 AM