Nickdfresh
04-25-2005, 06:54 AM
New allegations hit Bush pick for U.N. ambassador
Senator calls on Bolton to withdraw name
Monday, April 25, 2005 Posted: 6:12 AM EDT (1012 GMT)
http://www.ticketservice.com/assets/images/michael_bolton1.jpg
John Bolton appeared before a Senate panel April 11 to defend his nomination.
Image:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A series of new allegations surfaced Sunday against John Bolton, adding fuel to the dispute surrounding President Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador and further calling into question whether he will ultimately get the post.
"He would do himself, and I think the country, a favor by withdrawing," Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.
Newsweek reported, in its May 2 edition, that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw complained about Bolton to then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in November 2003. Citing a "former Bush administration official who was there," Newsweek said Straw told Powell that Bolton -- Powell's undersecretary for arms control and international security -- was making it impossible to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
According to the official, Newsweek reports, Powell then turned to an aide and said, "Get a different view on [the Iranian problem]. Bolton is being too tough."
Newsweek said British officials "at the highest level" persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team that ultimately convinced Libya to give up its nuclear program. Bolton was unwilling to support a compromise under which the United States would drop its goal of regime change in favor of "policy change" in exchange for Libya's disarmament, the magazine reported.
The magazine quoted one Bush official as calling the accounts of both incidents "flatly untrue."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Sunday Bolton was "the right person at the right time to do this important job."
"People are demanding reform at the United Nations, and John Bolton is the right person to help bring about much-needed changes. He is smart, passionate, blunt and occassionally gruff -- those are qualities required for an agent of change to get things done."
Bolton is not responding to allegations in the media while his confirmation process is under way. A State Department spokeswoman contacted by CNN had no immediate response to the report in Newsweek.
Democrats argued Sunday that Bolton's actions have shown he is the wrong man to serve as the top U.S. diplomat to the international body. They were also quick to emphasize that questions about his fitness for the position have come from Republicans as well.
"He's been a real tyrant when it came to people he worked with, who disagreed with him. This man doesn't have the temperament for this job," the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said on "Fox News Sunday."
But Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said on ABC's "This Week" that Bolton is being misrepresented.
"What you have here is an individual who is extraordinarily capable," he said.
Questions about Bolton's treatment of those he works with, particularly subordinates, as well as alleged efforts to pressure some in the intelligence community -- allegations Bolton supporters have denied -- have surrounded his nomination from the get-go.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed a vote on his nomination last week, with one Republican, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, saying he did not feel comfortable voting for Bolton. Two other Republican members, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, have left it unclear whether they would support Bolton.
The committee is scheduled to meet again May 12.
In testimony before the committee, Bolton has denied allegations of blocking diplomatic progress.
Allegations of abuse
But the complaints are mounting.
In a letter dated Friday to Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, Lynne Finney, the former U.N. policy adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development, recalled working with Bolton at the State Department in late 1982 or early 1983.
Finney wrote that he had asked her to persuade U.N. representatives from other countries to weaken restrictions on the marketing of infant formula in developing countries.
When she refused, citing serious health reasons, Bolton "said he was ordering me" and then "screamed that I was fired," Finney recounted.
When fellow attorneys said the firing was illegal, she stayed and Bolton "retaliated" by moving her to "a shabby windowless office in the basement in order to force me to leave," Finney wrote.
She said Peter McPherson, then USAID administrator, apologized for Bolton's behavior.
But McPherson -- whom the White House named chairman of the board for International Food and Agricultural Development in 2002 -- told CNN he has no recollection of the events Finney described.
Among the most serious allegations leveled so far against Bolton is a State Department intelligence analyst's claims that Bolton threatened to fire him over a 2002 speech in which Bolton accused Cuba of harboring a secret biological weapons program.
The analyst, Christian Westermann, insisted Bolton's speech use language reflecting more ambiguous intelligence assessments.
A former State Department official, Carl W. Ford Jr., said he was sufficiently concerned with Bolton's abrasive style that he talked to Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
In grilling about the incident, Bolton testified that he was upset because Westermann had gone behind his back -- not because Bolton disagreed with him. He said he never asked for anyone to be punished.
"This man is a proverbial bull in the china shop," Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, told CNN.
Under Bolton's tenure as undersecretary for arms control, Leahy said, Iran has made progress toward developing a nuclear weapon, and North Korea "has gone way beyond anything that the United States said it would tolerate."
"This man does not have a sterling track record," he said. "And then when you find that he wanted the CIA and others basically to shade intelligence to fit his political agenda? Well, I would hope we'd think that we've seen enough of that after what happened in Iraq."
Durbin said on Fox that he believes Bolton's nomination is "in trouble."
"He wants to work with people around the world, and he couldn't work with people in his own office," Durbin said. "And he's supposed to be open, as our man at the U.N., to ideas from other people. And he's been a real tyrant when it came to people he worked with, who disagreed with him. This man doesn't have the temperament for this job."
Support for Bolton
Powell has not expressed support for Bolton. But the nominee has the support of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who have called for his confirmation.
Kyl said on ABC that Bolton's critics are targeting him "because he's a tough guy who supports the president's policies."
"We need a tough guy over at the United Nations," he said. "It has become a corrupt and ineffective institution, and the president wants to send somebody over there that can get the job done."
Republicans also argued that there may be a lot of smoke about Bolton, but that doesn't mean there's fire.
Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on CBS Sunday that the complaints about Bolton "have not yet been proven." The Foreign Relations Committee, he said, "is going to have an adequate opportunity, presumably over the next three weeks, to get to the bottom of whatever it would like to find out about Secretary Bolton."
"It's about time somebody went to the U.N. with some degree of skepticism that would put some pressure on the U.N. to engage in the kind of serious reforms that the oil-for-food scandal clearly indicates are needed at long last," he said. ;) :D
www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/24/bolton.nomination/index.html
Senator calls on Bolton to withdraw name
Monday, April 25, 2005 Posted: 6:12 AM EDT (1012 GMT)
http://www.ticketservice.com/assets/images/michael_bolton1.jpg
John Bolton appeared before a Senate panel April 11 to defend his nomination.
Image:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A series of new allegations surfaced Sunday against John Bolton, adding fuel to the dispute surrounding President Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador and further calling into question whether he will ultimately get the post.
"He would do himself, and I think the country, a favor by withdrawing," Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.
Newsweek reported, in its May 2 edition, that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw complained about Bolton to then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in November 2003. Citing a "former Bush administration official who was there," Newsweek said Straw told Powell that Bolton -- Powell's undersecretary for arms control and international security -- was making it impossible to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
According to the official, Newsweek reports, Powell then turned to an aide and said, "Get a different view on [the Iranian problem]. Bolton is being too tough."
Newsweek said British officials "at the highest level" persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team that ultimately convinced Libya to give up its nuclear program. Bolton was unwilling to support a compromise under which the United States would drop its goal of regime change in favor of "policy change" in exchange for Libya's disarmament, the magazine reported.
The magazine quoted one Bush official as calling the accounts of both incidents "flatly untrue."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Sunday Bolton was "the right person at the right time to do this important job."
"People are demanding reform at the United Nations, and John Bolton is the right person to help bring about much-needed changes. He is smart, passionate, blunt and occassionally gruff -- those are qualities required for an agent of change to get things done."
Bolton is not responding to allegations in the media while his confirmation process is under way. A State Department spokeswoman contacted by CNN had no immediate response to the report in Newsweek.
Democrats argued Sunday that Bolton's actions have shown he is the wrong man to serve as the top U.S. diplomat to the international body. They were also quick to emphasize that questions about his fitness for the position have come from Republicans as well.
"He's been a real tyrant when it came to people he worked with, who disagreed with him. This man doesn't have the temperament for this job," the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said on "Fox News Sunday."
But Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said on ABC's "This Week" that Bolton is being misrepresented.
"What you have here is an individual who is extraordinarily capable," he said.
Questions about Bolton's treatment of those he works with, particularly subordinates, as well as alleged efforts to pressure some in the intelligence community -- allegations Bolton supporters have denied -- have surrounded his nomination from the get-go.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed a vote on his nomination last week, with one Republican, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, saying he did not feel comfortable voting for Bolton. Two other Republican members, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, have left it unclear whether they would support Bolton.
The committee is scheduled to meet again May 12.
In testimony before the committee, Bolton has denied allegations of blocking diplomatic progress.
Allegations of abuse
But the complaints are mounting.
In a letter dated Friday to Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, Lynne Finney, the former U.N. policy adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development, recalled working with Bolton at the State Department in late 1982 or early 1983.
Finney wrote that he had asked her to persuade U.N. representatives from other countries to weaken restrictions on the marketing of infant formula in developing countries.
When she refused, citing serious health reasons, Bolton "said he was ordering me" and then "screamed that I was fired," Finney recounted.
When fellow attorneys said the firing was illegal, she stayed and Bolton "retaliated" by moving her to "a shabby windowless office in the basement in order to force me to leave," Finney wrote.
She said Peter McPherson, then USAID administrator, apologized for Bolton's behavior.
But McPherson -- whom the White House named chairman of the board for International Food and Agricultural Development in 2002 -- told CNN he has no recollection of the events Finney described.
Among the most serious allegations leveled so far against Bolton is a State Department intelligence analyst's claims that Bolton threatened to fire him over a 2002 speech in which Bolton accused Cuba of harboring a secret biological weapons program.
The analyst, Christian Westermann, insisted Bolton's speech use language reflecting more ambiguous intelligence assessments.
A former State Department official, Carl W. Ford Jr., said he was sufficiently concerned with Bolton's abrasive style that he talked to Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
In grilling about the incident, Bolton testified that he was upset because Westermann had gone behind his back -- not because Bolton disagreed with him. He said he never asked for anyone to be punished.
"This man is a proverbial bull in the china shop," Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, told CNN.
Under Bolton's tenure as undersecretary for arms control, Leahy said, Iran has made progress toward developing a nuclear weapon, and North Korea "has gone way beyond anything that the United States said it would tolerate."
"This man does not have a sterling track record," he said. "And then when you find that he wanted the CIA and others basically to shade intelligence to fit his political agenda? Well, I would hope we'd think that we've seen enough of that after what happened in Iraq."
Durbin said on Fox that he believes Bolton's nomination is "in trouble."
"He wants to work with people around the world, and he couldn't work with people in his own office," Durbin said. "And he's supposed to be open, as our man at the U.N., to ideas from other people. And he's been a real tyrant when it came to people he worked with, who disagreed with him. This man doesn't have the temperament for this job."
Support for Bolton
Powell has not expressed support for Bolton. But the nominee has the support of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who have called for his confirmation.
Kyl said on ABC that Bolton's critics are targeting him "because he's a tough guy who supports the president's policies."
"We need a tough guy over at the United Nations," he said. "It has become a corrupt and ineffective institution, and the president wants to send somebody over there that can get the job done."
Republicans also argued that there may be a lot of smoke about Bolton, but that doesn't mean there's fire.
Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on CBS Sunday that the complaints about Bolton "have not yet been proven." The Foreign Relations Committee, he said, "is going to have an adequate opportunity, presumably over the next three weeks, to get to the bottom of whatever it would like to find out about Secretary Bolton."
"It's about time somebody went to the U.N. with some degree of skepticism that would put some pressure on the U.N. to engage in the kind of serious reforms that the oil-for-food scandal clearly indicates are needed at long last," he said. ;) :D
www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/24/bolton.nomination/index.html