What is the real issue with Bolton?
He is rude, abrasive, confrontational and a liar? Is that who you want representing the US?
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Ex-Ambassador: Bolton May Have Misled Senate Committee
By Paul Richter and Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writer
A former U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Thursday that John R. Bolton, President Bush's choice for U.N. ambassador, may have misled the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about a provocative and controversial 2003 speech on North Korea.
The former ambassador, Thomas Hubbard, also described a confrontation in which Bolton yelled at him and slammed down a telephone, in another example of the confrontational behavior that has helped stall Bolton's nomination.
Hubbard has spoken with Foreign Relations Committee aides, who are expanding an investigation into Bolton's background after senators this week postponed a confirmation vote until mid-May.
In a sign of deepening White House concern about the fate of the nomination, Bush defended Bolton on Thursday while addressing a group of insurance agents about Social Security reform. A day earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in Europe, staunchly endorsed Bolton.
But in a potentially troublesome development for the administration, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who has had sharp disagreements with Bolton in the past, has been speaking to Republican senators on the nomination, Powell spokeswoman Peggy Cifrino said Thursday.
While Powell has not taken a public position on the Bolton nomination, his name was noticeably absent from a letter sent this month by a group of former Republican secretaries of State and other ex-officials urging Bolton's approval as U.N. ambassador. The letter was signed by former chief diplomats James A. Baker III, Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Schultz, among others.
Bolton, who has served since 2001 as undersecretary of State, has been hobbled by opposition to his critical views on the United Nations, his use of U.S. intelligence assessments in high-profile speeches and testimony and his treatment of intelligence analysts and others.
In July 2003, Bolton attracted widespread attention with a speech in South Korea in which he leveled repeated personal attacks on North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. Some U.S. diplomats feared the speech would lead North Korea to pull out of international talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
In testimony last week, Bolton implied that Thomas Hubbard, the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, approved in advance of the speech and that he thanked Bolton for his comments afterward.
But Hubbard, a career diplomat who was Bush's ambassador to South Korea from 2001 to 2004, contradicted Bolton, saying in an interview that he did not express gratitude for the speech and disapproved of it.
"I didn't approve personally of the tone of the speech, and had urged him to tone it down," said Hubbard, who has now retired from the foreign service.
Bolton testified that the night before the speech, Hubbard "reviewed it one last time and made a few more changes." After the speech, Bolton testified that Hubbard praised him.
"And I can tell you what our ambassador to South Korea, Tom Hubbard, said after the speech," Bolton said under questioning by Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. "He said: 'Thanks a lot for that speech, John, it will help us a lot out here.' "
Hubbard disputed Bolton's testimony.
Before the speech, Hubbard said he had urged Bolton and his staff "to tone it down, on grounds that it would be counterproductive to getting the North Koreans to the negotiating table."
But, "He rejected that suggestion," Hubbard said.
He said Bolton did agree to accept some recommendations on factual errors, and on "some phrases that I thought would be taken badly or misunderstood by the South Koreans." When he offered thanks, it was for those changes, Hubbard said.
"It's a gross exaggeration to elevate that to praise for the entire speech, and approval of it," Hubbard added.
Hubbard, who earlier had served as U.S. ambassador to the Philippines during the Clinton administration, said he had spoken with several senators and Senate staff members to set the record straight about his views on the Bolton address. His disagreement with Bolton's testimony was first reported this week on Newsweek's Web site.
Chafee, who represents a key vote on the committee as an undecided Republican, has said the "discrepancies" in Bolton's testimony about the speech bothered him.
In the 2003 address, Bolton described Kim as a "tyrannical dictator" and said life in impoverished North Korea was a "hellish nightmare." In response, the North Koreans denounced Bolton as "human scum."
Bolton insisted in his testimony that the speech had been "fully cleared within the appropriate bureaucracy." He did not specifically identify who had approved the speech.
Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard, the State Department's former senior expert on North Korea, refused to approve the address because it was "over the top," Pritchard said Thursday. But former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage has said the speech was cleared at the State Department.
Hubbard described a separate encounter in which Bolton "berated" him for failing to set up a meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, as Bolton had requested.
Hubbard told Bolton that seeking a meeting was unwise, because Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly had just met with the South Korean president to convey a message from Bush. In response, Bolton became angry and slammed down the phone to end the conversation.
Foreign Relations Committee aides are investigating three incidents in which Bolton sought to remove or reassign intelligence analysts who disagreed with him and several additional incidents in which Bolton had confrontations with underlings. Bolton lashed out at two of the analysts for refusing to use their intelligence assessments to support his hard-line views. The third refused to supply intelligence documents sought by Bolton.
Hubbard said his experience was slightly different.
"I was roughly a co-equal with Bolton, so I didn't feel he was kicking down. He was kicking sideways," Hubbard said. "But there was some kick in his manner."
Committee aides responsible for jointly conducting the remaining portion of the investigation of Bolton failed Thursday to agree on how to proceed. Democrats and Republicans agreed to hold a vote on Bolton's nomination in May but could not agree on a date.
Republicans are anxious to hold a vote as quickly as possible, to get Bolton's nomination out of the committee and before the full Senate, where they hold a 55-45 majority. Democrats want to hold open the possibility of Bolton returning to testify again before the vote.
latimes.com |
