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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 10K a day who wrote (678749)	4/9/2005 11:46:13 AM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Things are looking up. <g> I think Bolton will be confirmed. Posted on Thu, Apr. 07, 2005 kansascity.com Nominee for U.N. ambassador under investigation BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND NANCY SAN MARTIN Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Congressional investigators are probing a new allegation that President Bush's choice for United Nations ambassador once visited CIA headquarters to demand the removal of a top intelligence analyst who disagreed with him on Cuba's biological warfare capabilities. Current and former senior U.S. intelligence officials denounced the alleged visit by Under Secretary of State John Bolton. They said it risked undermining the objectivity of intelligence judgments by sending a message that analysts who do not tell policy-makers what they want to hear would be punished. The impartiality of U.S. intelligence judgments remains a highly charged issue because of assertions by some lawmakers that analysts were pressured to produce assessments on Iraq that supported Bush's case for war but turned out to be wrong. Several top-level inquiries have rejected those claims of political pressure. In preparation for Bolton's confirmation hearing on Monday, Republican and Democratic congressional investigators are looking into charges that he tried to penalize the analyst for disputing comments about Cuba's biological warfare capability in a draft of a 2002 speech by Bolton. The analyst, who was the Latin America expert on the National Intelligence Council, cannot be identified because he is now is in an undercover position. The council produces long-range strategic forecasts and assessments of the most critical national security issues for the president and top policymakers. The inquiry into Bolton's actions was confirmed by U.S. officials who requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity and because Bolton's nomination has become enmeshed in fierce partisan lobbying campaigns involving e-mails, telephone calls and television ads. A telephone call to Bolton's office for comment went unanswered. One congressional official sympathetic to Bolton said, "As we've looked at it, we haven't found anything that violates the norms of behavior when it comes to these kinds of things." A former senior diplomat said in an interview with Knight Ridder that he tried to get the analyst removed from his position and discussed the matter with Bolton but did not know if Bolton also tried to take action against the analyst. Otto Reich, former assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, said he went to CIA headquarters in 2002 to hand deliver a letter calling for the replacement of the senior analyst. "The letter was a last resort," he said, adding that he did not see his action as improper. "An intelligence consumer getting involved with the improvement of intelligence on which policy is based?" A former senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, responded: "I think it's highly improper. Having policy differences is one thing. But to tamper with the hiring practices of another agency and the implicit intimidation that went with it goes beyond the pale." Bolton is a conservative who has been fiercely critical of the United Nations and questioned its usefulness. It is unclear if the latest allegations will imperil Bolton's nomination. One Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, remained undecided on which way he will vote. If Chaffee were to join the committee's eight Democrats in opposing Bolton, the nomination would be blocked. The congressional investigators were told that Reich and Bolton demanded that the national intelligence officer be removed from his position during separate visits they made to CIA headquarters in 2002, the U.S. officials said. But, they said, the then-acting chairman of the NIC, Stuart Cohen, and top CIA officials rebuffed Bolton and Reich, and the analyst was promoted. Reich asserted that the matter is being raised now as part of "a smear campaign" orchestrated by Democrats eager to derail Bolton's nomination. "This is the typical Washington character assassination," he said, adding that he considered Bolton "extremely careful and intellectually honest. Yes, he's conservative, but that's why the president picked him." Reich said the national intelligence officer should have been replaced for assessments that were "biased, politicized, unreliable and very often wrong." "The judgments were terrible. The information was bad, not just on Cuba, but on Latin America, too. He was wrong on Haiti, Colombia and Venezuela," Reich said. He declined to give any examples of the "unreliable" information because it was classified information. Reich said that on Friday, he called a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - he declined to disclose the name - to offer to testify on Bolton's behalf and was awaiting a response. "I want to set the record straight," he said. The issue of "questionable" intelligence on Cuba was raised by Bolton last year during testimony on Capitol Hill, where he reiterated that the administration still believes there is a "strong" case that Cuba has a limited biological weapons effort. The Cuban government has consistently denied the allegation. * * *