Bolton Withheld Vital Memos

The Washington Post reports this morning that John Bolton "often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to US strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton." According to the unnamed officials, they often had to use non-traditional channels to route key information either to Secretary Powell or his deputy Richard Armitage. There were times, say the officials, when reports were "delayed for weeks or simply did not get through."

Prior to a international conference in late 2003 concering Iran's nuclear program, Deputy Secretary Armitage asked analysts to prepare a memo outlining how other countries were positioned on the question of asking the UN Security Council to monitor Iran's nuclear program. After the memo was prepared, analysts told the Post, Bolton "said that information couldn't be collected", apparently because it showed a lack of support for a UN investigation.

More recently, Bolton's campaign to oust International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei caused him to keep new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "out of the loop." Says the Post:

"[A]uthoritative officials said Bolton let her go on her first European trip without knowing about the growing opposition there to Bolton's campaign to oust the head of the UN nuclear agency. 'She went off without knowing the details of what everybody else was saying about how they were not going to join the campaign, according to a senior official."

The report suggests that while Rice has been publicly supportive of Bolton for the UN ambassadorship, "she has kept him out of key discussions on Iran since taking over in January," and notably passed over him in picking her chief deputy, choosing instead former trade rep Robert Zoellick.

So now we have Christian Westerman, Fulton T. Armstrong, Rexon Ryu, Jack Pritchard, and the fact that Bolton withheld vital information from his superiors because he disagreed with it. Plus there are the other allegations of impropriety toward subordinates, which the LA Times elaborates on this morning.

If I didn't know any better, I'd have to think we might be seeing the beginnings of a pattern.

Just a word on Rexon Ryu, the former State Department analyst who Bolton tried to get fired for failing "produce a copy of a cable he had written about the work of UN inspectors in Iraq" in February, 2003. Ryu worked closely with Powell while at State, and according to today's Post article, was "instrumental in getting the most controversial allegations" out of Colin Powell's speech to the Security Council in which he made the case for war against Iraq. This is a man who clearly deserved better than what he got from John Bolton.

Ryu earned high praise from Senator Hagel yesterday on "Late Edition":

"Rexon is a fellow over in my office from the State Department. He is a highly regarded State Department official. He worked closely with Secretary Powell, Deputy Secretary Armitage and others when he was there. He never mentioned this to me, to his credit. He's a professional. He never once tried to influence my sense of where Bolton was or anything about Bolton. This came out independent of any allegation that Rexon made to me or any information he gave me about this. So, there's no question about how well thought of this young man is."

Like President Bush, John Bolton seems to have confused "fire" with "promote". Those who questioned him, who tried to push for the truth rather than Bolton's perverted version of it, he attempted to sideline. Is this the man we want in what is probably the most important ambassadorial post in the world?

I think not.