John Bolton objects to "blaming every consequence of the overthrow of Saddam on the United States"

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PULITZER/8a551fba7c49d65b5a43e820edecd4b5.htm

DOUMA, Syria - Mustafa Hamad Rassoul doesn't see how his family can survive.

Back in Baghdad, the 55-year-old Iraqi Kurd says, the money he made running a clothing shop was more than enough to house and feed his two

wives and 10 children. But here in Syria, where he came last year after being threatened by the Mahdi Army, the food and cash assistance his family receives doesn't last the month.

Rassoul blames the United States.

"America always talks about human rights," he says while waiting at the U.N. refugee registration center in this city outside Damascus. "They come and say they are liberating us. Let them find a place where I can live."

...

John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,disagrees, saying the United States has been generous in response to the refugee crisis. "It was not the responsibility of the United States to turn the entire Iraqi population into a client of welfare because of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein," says Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He objects to what he described as an inclination by some toward "blaming every consequence of the overthrow of Saddam on the United States."

"A lot of things flowed from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, including the unleashing of animosities within the Iraqi population that had existed for decades under Baath Party rule if not for centuries because of the split within Islam," he says. "Now, that has resulted in some undoubtedly unhappy and even tragic consequences. But that doesn't mean that the United States is responsible for each and every one of those consequences."