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The Sinner who Refuses to Repent: John Bolton |
Current rating: 0 |
by Knut Mellenthin
Email: mbatko (nospam) lycos.com (verified) |
18 Apr 2005
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On Tuesday, Bolton's conduct toward colleagues in the State department was probed. Witnesses reported that the Under-secretary attempted to fire experts who doubted his assertions about Cuban bio-weapons. Email committee members! |
THE SINNER WHO REFUSES TO REPENT
UN-enemy Bolton could be the UN ambassador of the US. Hearing in the Senate
By Knut Mellenthin
[This article published in: Junge Welte 4/14/2005 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/04-14/005.php.]
Since Monday the Foreign Relations committee of the US Senate has interrogated John Bolton who should become UN ambassador according to the will of the administration in Washington. Bolton belonging to the neo-conservatives and currently Undersecretary for arms control in the State Department has often attracted attention with anti-Un statements. Therefore 56 former US ambassadors protested against Bolton’s nomination in an open letter. [http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/315416.shtml]
The formal nomination requires the approval of the Senate where republicans have a majority of 55 to 45. First of all, the Foreign Relations committee must agree. Ten republicans and eight democrats are represented there. In all probability all the democrats will vote against Bolton. If only one of the republicans joins them, there will be a deadlock in the committee. Then the procedure would be blocke4d. Attention focuses on republican senator Lincoln Chafee. According to his statement, he inclines to vote for Bolton but is not a hundred-percent decided.
On Monday, Bolton was questioned by the democratic committee members about his remarks against the UN. Among other things, he said the world organization doesn’t really exist and if the UN skyscraper in New York lost ten stories, that wouldn’t make any difference. Bolton did not deny or relativize any of the remarks attributed to him. As ambassador to the UN, he said he would loyally hold to the official line of the US government.
On Tuesday, Bolton’s conduct toward colleagues in the State Department was probed. Witnesses reported that the Undersecretary attempted to fire experts who doubted his assertions about Cuban bio-weapons.
Further questions revealed that Bolton at the beginning of the 1990s as a colleague of the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank, spoke in favor of Taiwan’s UN membership and wrote paid articles for the Taiwanese president. That contradicted official US policy. Bolton declared before the committee that he still had this opinion today but would keep to the line of the government.
The formal vote in the committee on Bolton’s nomination was originally planned for last Thursday. Whether he will be approved by the committee seems open. |
See also:
http://www.mbtranslations.com
http://www.commondreams.org
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Bolton Often Blocked Information, Officials Say |
by Dafna Linzer
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Apr 2005
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WASHINGTON -- John Bolton, who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton.
In some cases, career officials found back channels to Powell or his deputy, Richard Armitage, who encouraged assistant secretaries to bring information directly to him.
In other cases, the information was delayed for weeks or simply did not get through. The officials, who would discuss the incidents only on the condition of anonymity because some continue to deal with Bolton on other issues, cited a dozen examples of memos or information that Bolton refused to forward during his four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
Two officials described a memo that had been prepared for Powell at the end of October 2003, before a critical international meeting on Iran, informing him that the United States was losing support for efforts to have the U.N. Security Council investigate Iran's nuclear program.
Bolton allegedly argued it would be premature to throw in the towel. "When Armitage's staff asked for information about what other countries were thinking, Bolton said that information couldn't be collected," according to one official with firsthand knowledge of the exchange.
Intra-agency tensions are common in Washington, and as the undersecretary of state in charge of nuclear issues, Bolton had a lot of latitude to decide what needed to go to the secretary. But career officials said they often thought his decisions, and policy views, left the department's top diplomat uninformed and fed long-running struggles inside the agency.
Bolton's time at the State Department under Rice has been brief. But authoritative officials said Bolton let her go on her first European trip without knowing about growing opposition there to Bolton's campaign to oust the head of the U.N. nuclear agency.
Bolton has been trying to replace Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is perceived by some within the Bush administration as too soft on Iran.
"[Rice] went off without knowing the details of what everybody else was saying about how they were not going to join the campaign," a senior official said.
Publicly, Rice has staunchly defended Bolton's credentials and urged the Senate to confirm him. But privately, officials said, she has kept him out of key discussions on Iran since taking over in January.
Bolton's staff spent the weekend answering dozens of follow-up queries from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is conducting his confirmation hearings.
Nominees traditionally refrain from responding to questions outside that process, and the State Department has not directly commented on allegations and testimony in recent weeks from former officials who characterized Bolton as a bully who has sought the removal of intelligence analysts who challenged him on facts and evidence related to weapons of mass destruction.
Bolton's supporters argue that his blunt style and hard-line views make him ideally suited to serve U.S. interests at the United Nations. His opponents argue that Bolton's demeanor and disdain for the United Nations will make it difficult for the White House to achieve its goals there.
Democrats on the foreign-relations panel blocked a vote on Bolton last week and are hoping new information might persuade Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., or others to vote against him.
A vote is scheduled for tomorrow, and Republicans on the committee indicated yesterday that they will support him. But they also expressed deep concern over the allegations against Bolton in recent weeks.
Testimony last Tuesday by former State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford Jr. left several of them shaken after he described Bolton as a "serial abuser" who picked on junior officers who dared to challenge him. Chafee had said Ford's testimony was strong but it did not show a pattern.
But yesterday, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said the allegations were beginning to pile up.
"If there's nothing more that comes out, I will vote for Bolton," Hagel told CNN's "Late Edition." But Hagel also said he was "troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation," including allegations that Bolton had intimidated a member of Hagel's staff who had worked briefly under Bolton at the State Department's Nonproliferation Bureau.
In February 2003, Bolton reportedly accused the young career official, Rexon Ryu, of concealing information and of insubordination when he failed to produce a copy of a cable he had written about the work of U.N. inspectors in Iraq.
Ryu's immediate superiors investigated the accusation and found it baseless. But Bolton wanted Ryu removed from his duties, officials said.
Just weeks before the incident, Ryu had been among a small number of State Department officials who accompanied Powell to CIA headquarters to review the presentation that Powell would give to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's alleged weapons programs.
Officials said Ryu had been instrumental in getting the most controversial allegations out of Powell's speech.
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