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reports offering information the Bush administration preferred: Saturday, April 16, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.
Trouble hits Bolton nomination
By Sonni Efron
Los Angeles Times
John Bolton: Nomination for U.N. post in jeopardy?
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., signaled yesterday that his support for the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador was wavering after new reports that Bolton had ordered an intelligence analyst removed from his job.
The analyst, a State Department employee who now works on Hagel's Senate staff, is the third intelligence analyst who was reported to have been threatened or intimidated by Bolton, who has served since 2001 as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
"Sen. Hagel is likely to be supportive , but he needs to be assured there are not additional serious areas of concern," Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry said yesterday, adding Hagel was "troubled" by the new information.
Posing potential new problems, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are investigating as many as five additional incidents in which Bolton's demeanor toward State Department subordinates has been questioned, according to Senate staff members from both parties. In a confirmation hearing this week, testimony indicated Bolton demanded the removal of two intelligence analysts who disagreed with him. More: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243248_bolton16.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~Statement from a former co-worker: Here's the entire text of her letter:
Dear Sir:
I'm writing to urge you to consider blocking in committee the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.
In the late summer of 1994, I worked as the subcontracted leader of a US AID project in Kyrgyzstan officially awarded to a HUB primary contractor. My own employer was Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, and I reported directly to Republican leader Charlie Black.
After months of incompetence, poor contract performance, inadequate in-country funding, and a general lack of interest or support in our work from the prime contractor, I was forced to make US AID officials aware of the prime contractor's poor performance.
I flew from Kyrgyzstan to Moscow to meet with other Black Manafort employees who were leading or subcontracted to other US AID projects. While there, I met with US AID officials and expressed my concerns about the project -- chief among them, the prime contractor's inability to keep enough cash in country to allow us to pay bills, which directly resulted in armed threats by Kyrgyz contractors to me and my staff.
Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.
Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.
When US AID asked me to return to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in advance of assuming leadership of a project in Kazakstan, I returned to my project to find that John Bolton had proceeded me by two days. Why? To meet with every other AID team leader as well as US foreign-service officials in Bishkek, claiming that I was under investigation for misuse of funds and likely was facing jail time. As US AID can confirm, nothing was further from the truth. More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/15/101542/050~~~~~~~~~~~~~April 25, 2005
Bush's Bully
John Bolton: the Undiplomatic Diplomat
By GARY LEUPP
Boston, Mass.
John Bolton, an evil man, looks headed for a fall. But will he, foaming at the mouth, fall for the right reasons? On May 6, 2002 Bolton, then Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, in a speech to the rightwing Heritage Foundation claimed that Cuba had a program to produce offensive biological weapons. The Bush administration, he declared, “believes Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort,” and has “provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states.” His talk, entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil” (recall that the term had been introduced just three months earlier by President Bush in his State of the Union rant), followed charges by anti-Castro Cuban-American organizations that a joint Cuba-Iran pharmaceutical research venture was actually a front for the development of such weapons. The press made a big deal of the talk, the shameless neocon groupie Judith Miller of the New York Times reporting, “Bush administration officials report that the United States believes that Cuba has been experimenting with anthrax and other deadly biological pathogens.”
Cuba, proud of its advanced biotech- and genetic-engineering programs that provide medicines and vaccines at small cost to many Third World countries, called the accusations “vile.” Fidel Castro, planning to host former President Jimmy Carter on a Cuba from May 12 to 17, labeled the allegation “an absolute lie” and offered Carter “together with any experts of choosing” “free and complete access” to any of Cuba’s science centers.
After visiting Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Carter stated, “With some degree of reluctance I would also like to comment on the allegation of bioterrorism. I do this because these allegations were made, maybe not coincidentally, just before our visit to Cuba.”
He said that U.S. intelligence officials had given him extensive briefings before his visit and that they had told him they had no evidence Cuba was either producing biological weapons or helping other countries to do so. “I asked them specifically, on more than one occasion: ‘Is there any evidence that Cuba has been involved in sharing any information to any other country on Earth that could be used for terrorist purposes?’ And the answer from our experts on intelligence was ‘no.’ ” http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp04252005.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Two Detail Bolton's Efforts to Punish Dissent
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2005; Page A02
A former senior Bush administration official told Senate staff members yesterday that John R. Bolton, the president's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, sought to punish two State Department officials for disagreeing with him on nonproliferation issues, congressional sources said. And a former CIA chief, disputing Bolton, said the nominee had tried to fire a national intelligence officer who believed Bolton was exaggerating evidence on Cuba, they said.
John S. Wolf, who served as assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation and as President Bush's senior envoy to the Middle East until last year, and Alan Foley, who ran the CIA's weapons of mass destruction office, were two of six people who were interviewed by staff members on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Bolton's nomination before the panel has been stalled by allegations that he bullied intelligence analysts, harassed colleagues and exaggerated threats posed by Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Iran.
The allegations, some of which remain unsubstantiated, caused enough concern among committee members, including several Republicans, that a vote has been delayed until May 12 to allow time to investigate. The White House has responded with a forceful lobbying and public relations campaign, and is considering ways to push through the nomination on the Senate floor even if it fails in committee. More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801874.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Senators Challenge Bolton on Contempt for UN .
Bully Bolton Threatens National Security
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 18 April 2005
John Bolton is the wrong man for the job of US ambassador to the United Nations. His status as an avowed UN-hater, standing alone, disqualifies him. But there are other, stronger reasons to reject his appointment to that important post.
Bolton's performance in his current position as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security has made the American people less safe. Bolton has been charged, since 2001, with halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But on Bolton's watch, the proliferation problem has gotten worse, not better.
Fewer weapons-grade nuclear materials were secured in the two years after September 11, 2001, than in the preceding two years.
North Korea, which had two nuclear weapons, now has eight. Bolton's scathing insults of President Kim Jong Ill provoked a dangerous reaction from the North Koreans, who called Bolton "human scum" and a "bloodsucker" who was "not entitled to take part in the talks.. "We have decided," they declared, "not to consider him as an official of the US administration any longer nor to deal with him."
On Bolton's watch, Iran has increased its nuclear program. Alarmingly, Bolton often blocked former Secretary of State Colin Powell from receiving “information vital to US strategies on Iran,” according to today's Washington Post.
Bolton successfully pushed to cut funding for the Nunn-Lugar program to halt the proliferation of nuclear materials, and failed to conclude a Plutonium Disposition Agreement with Russia to eliminate 70 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
Bolton has widely been considered responsible for the defeat of the Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would have created an inspection system to protect us against these deadly weapons. This is documented by Nicole Deller and John Burroughs from the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.
In short, Bolton's resume shows that he has earned a failing grade in arms control.
But the most important reason to reject Bolton's appointment to the UN post is the brutal way he conducts business. His modus operandi poses a real danger to the future security of the United States. Over and over again, Bolton has bullied his inferiors and even a non-governmental employee to get his way. And his way has led repeatedly to the proliferation of false intelligence that could endanger our national security. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:vHTYS4l3eUIJ:www.truthout.org/docs_2005/041805B.shtml+John+Bolton+bully&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=us |
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