I haven’t been blogging much about the controversy surrounding John Bolton—Bush’s pick for U.N. Secretary—and, no, he hasn’t spoken on the Downing Street Memo. However, Kevin at Lean Left has an interesting post pointing to an article suggesting that Bolton’s actions give further credence to the contents of the memo. It does sound like Bolton was acting on behalf of the administration to keep the truth about WMDs from coming to light, going so far as to get a U.N. weapons inspector fired.
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.
A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani “had to go,” particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Bustani, who says he got a “menacing” phone call from Bolton at one point, was removed by a vote of just one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at which the United States cited alleged mismanagement in calling for his ouster.
The United Nations’ highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an “unacceptable violation” of principles protecting international civil servants. The OPCW session’s Swiss chairman now calls it an “unfortunate precedent” and Bustani a “man with merit.”
“Many believed the U.S. delegation didn’t want meddling from outside in the Iraq business,” said the retired Swiss diplomat, Heinrich Reimann. “That could be the case.”
Kinda reinforces the idea that the administration was hell bent on war no matter what the facts about WMDs or any threat to the U.S. actually were. It also reinforced the need to do everything in our power to see that the adminstration is held accountable and investigated for possibly “fixing” intelligence and facts around policy that was nailed down before Bush even took office.
Or, as Kevin said”
If you believe in democracy, even if you supported the invasion of Iraq, you have to demand that Bush be held accountable – that Congress investigate whether or not Bush manipulated intelligence to make his case for war. If Bush or people in his Administration manipulated intelligence, then they lied to the American people about a matter of national security. If they did that, they must be removed. This transcends partisanship. Allowing them to get away with it, refusing to even investigate the accusations in the face of the strong evidence we have now, is to abandon democracy.
Where to start? Signing on to Rep. Conyer’s letter is a good place to begin. We’ve surpassed 110,000 signatures and the next goal is 250,00. If you have friends or family who have not signed, email them and ask them to sign. If you want to spread the word further, download some fliers, print them and hand them out or post them in your community. Send a postcard to your representatives ni Congress, urging them to support an inquiry.
Just take one of the above steps, today.
