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Breaking Bolton News. It's late, so just go read Dafna Linzer's piece in tomorrow's Washington Post:
So who is John Bolton really working for, if not for the Secretary of State? The President of the United States nominated Colin Powell and then Condoleezza Rice to be his boss, but Bolton seems to have had a problem abiding by the chain of command as it stood. Under whose authority did he operate outside normal channels and withhold vital Iran intelligence from his superiors? And who will he really be answering to in NY? Truly disturbing behavior that harkens back to Iran Contra in so many ways. You will want to read this.John R. Bolton -- who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. 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 L. 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, ahead of 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 that 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 felt that his decisions, and policy views, left the department's top diplomat uninformed and fed the 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 the growing opposition there to Bolton's campaign to oust the head of the U.N. 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. 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.
Publicly, Rice has staunchly defended Bolton's credentials and urged the Senate to quickly confirm him. But privately, officials said, she has kept him out of key discussions on Iran since taking over in January...
Senators Hagel, Chafee, Lugar: Is this really the man you want representing the United States at the UN when Washington presents its case on Iran's nuclear program to the world? Most importantly, the case, coming from Bolton or Secretary of State Rice withheld information by Bolton, will fail to persuade the American people. He's truly discredited among the colleagues he has worked with at the State Department the past four years, a back stabbing ideologue not working for the president or the American people, but serving his own agenda. The evidence is there for all to see, John Bolton cannot be trusted by the people he is supposed to be serving.
[Thanks to eagle-eyed JR.]
Update: There's also more in the Linzer piece about why Bolton wanted the young State Department nonproliferation analyst Rexon Ryu removed from his duties at State (and indeed, Ryu was transferred, first to Armitage's staff, and he now works for Senator Hagel). Apparently Ryu worked mightily to get the worst excesses out of Powell's UN speech. From the WaPo:
Ryu is clearly the kind of guy you want to have working for you. Unless you're Bolton and the facts are threatening to the pre-ordained agenda you serve.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 charge 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 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.