It looks like it was intended that Bolton drive the push to war with Iran. He's been making every effort, at high levels, to make war more likely than not:
Bolton kept Powell in dark over Iran strategy
By Dafna Linzer Washington April 19, 2005
John Bolton, who is seeking confirmation as the next US ambassador to the United Nations, often blocked information vital to US strategies on Iran, it has emerged.
He would keep Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, in the dark. Officials say staff found back channels to Mr Powell or his deputy, Richard 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 talk only if their names were not used - cited a dozen examples of memos or information that Mr Bolton refused to forward during his four years as under-secretary of state for arms control and international security.
Two officials described a memo that had been prepared for Mr Powell at the end of October 2003, just before a critical international meeting on Iran, informing him that the US was losing support for efforts to have the UN Security Council investigate Iran's nuclear program.
Mr 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, Mr Bolton said that information couldn't be collected," according to one official with first-hand knowledge of the exchange.
Intra-agency tensions are common in Washington, and as the under-secretary of state in charge of nuclear issues, Mr Bolton had a lot of latitude to decide what had to go to the secretary.
But career officials said they often felt his decisions and policy views left the department's top diplomat uninformed and fed long-running struggles inside the agency.
Mr Bolton's time at the State Department under Dr Rice has been brief. But officials said he let her go on her first European trip without knowing about growing opposition there to his campaign to oust the head of the UN nuclear agency.
Mr Bolton had a lot of latitude to decide what had to go to the secretary."She went off without knowing the details of what everybody else was saying about how they were not going to join the campaign," an official said.
Mr 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.
theage.com.au
We'll see how long it takes for the war party to find a way around this possible setback for them. |
