Bush's man a 'kick-down' bully
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=1012036114.04.05
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush's nominee for United Nations ambassador, John Bolton, was a bully who tried to force an analyst to bend intelligence on Cuba's weapons to fit a speech, a Senate hearing was told.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is considering the nomination, was told Bolton berated a State Department's intelligence analyst who held up a speech which stated Cuba had a biological arms programme.
Carl Ford, who ran the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, described Bolton as a "kiss up, kick down" bureaucrat who berated those at lower levels while placating higher-ups, and said he demanded the analyst should be fired.
"I've never met anyone like him in terms of the way he abuses his power and authority over little people," Ford said.
Bush's Republicans hold a 10-8 majority in the committee and Democrats were trying to persuade Senator Lincoln Chafee, who has expressed some doubts on Bolton's appointment, to vote with them. A tie would block the nomination from going to full Senate.
Bolton, known as an outspoken critic of the UN, is now UnderSecretary of State for Arms Control.
Ford told of an irate exchange with Bolton after he had abused the analyst for holding up the speech.
"I left with the perception that I had been asked for the first time to fire an intelligence analyst for what he had said and done," Ford said. "In my experience no one had ever done what Secretary Bolton did."
Although the analyst kept his job and Bolton's speech was reworked to comply with known intelligence, Ford said the incident had "a chilling effect" on department analysts.
Ford, who described himself as a conservative Republican loyal to Bush, said Bolton should have taken his complaints to him, but instead first went to the lower level department analyst and gave him a "tongue lashing".
Ford said he took the matter to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, who he said made an effort to reassure analysts and tell them "they should continue in essence to speak truth to power".
Bolton gave a sharply different account, denying that he tried to have the analyst fired. He told senators he was angry the analyst went around his back on procedures, and said he did not challenge the substance of the intelligence.
Democrats said Ford's testimony and statements from other witnesses before the committee showed a pattern of attempted intimidation of intelligence officials which they said made Bolton unfit for the diplomatic post.
They said his appointment would cast more doubt on US intelligence whose credibility was badly damaged by its incorrect finding that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, cited as justification for the 2003 US-led invasion.
Republicans argued that Ford only accounted for one incident that pointed to Bolton's demeanour, not necessarily his qualifications for the UN post.
Rhode Island senator Chafee said after the hearing he was inclined to confirm Bolton but added he still wanted to talk to colleagues on the committee.
Chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who has been less than enthusiastic about the nomination, said Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had confidence in Bolton and that the Administration would supervise Bolton's statements at the UN.
The committee is expected to vote on the nomination later this week.
- REUTERS