WSJ: Record Discredits Bolton's Accusers

The chief witness Senate Democrats cite as proving charges against John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for the U.S. ambassadorship to the U.N., not only did the same thing Bolton is accused of doing but even backed the nominee in previous testimony. In a scathing editorial today, the Wall Street Journal thoroughly discredited charges by one Carl Ford, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. Noting that there are two principal charges against Bolton, first that Mr. Bolton distorted intelligence information in a public speech before the Heritage Foundation in which he warned of a possible biological weapons effort in Cuba, and second that he is said to have intimidated intelligence officials, the Journal proceeded to dismantle both accusations. Wrote the Journal: "Let's take the allegations about the Cuba speech first. In May 2002, Mr. Bolton told an audience at the Heritage Foundation that he believed Havana had "a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort" and has "provided dual-use technology to other rogue states." But, the Journal reports, had Bolton's Democrat critics done their homework, they would know that "Mr. Bolton wasn't the first U.S. government official to use such language." As the Journal's Latin America correspondent Mary Anastasia O'Grady reported at the time, Ford himself used nearly identical words when he testified before Congress two months earlier. According to the Journal, on March 19, 2002, Ford said Cuba has "a limited developmental offensive biological warfare research and development effort." And, "Cuba has provided dual use biotechnology through rogue states." He repeated himself on June 5, 2002, when he testified again before Congress. Writes the Journal: "If Mr. Bolton skewed the government's position on Cuba's germ-warfare effort, then Mr. Ford did too." Ford testified a second time at a hearing of the Senate Western Hemisphere subcommittee called for the purpose of investigating Bolton's Heritage comments.

According to the editorial, "Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd - one of Mr. Bolton's fiercest critics - asked Mr. Ford: 'Did you have any disagreements with the draft [Heritage] speech?' Ford replied, 'On the intelligence side, we did not. We approved it. It was the language we had provided.' We trust Mr. Dodd will recall this exchange when he questions Mr. Bolton today."

Yesterday, Dodd claimed that there is "credible information" that Bolton tried to have two intelligence analysts fired for raising objections in advance of his Heritage speech. Dodd seems to have forgotten that the Senate has already investigated these allegations. In a report issued by the Intelligence Committee last July, Bolton and other government officials were exonerated of the charges of trying to manipulate intelligence for political purposes. According to the Journal, the report concluded that none of the intelligence analysts it interviewed "provided any information to the Committee which showed that policymakers had attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their analysis or that any intelligence analysts had changed their intelligence judgments as a result of political pressure." Moreover, reported the Journal, "the Senate report specifically clears Mr. Bolton of charges relating to the Heritage speech. It quotes an unnamed analyst who said that Mr. Bolton "berated" him when he made changes to a draft of the speech. But he also said "he was not removed from his portfolio and that he did not suffer any negative effects professionally." The analyst, Christian Westermann, is expected to testify against Mr. Bolton. Similar charges have been levied by a Latin America analyst at the CIA, who, like Mr. Westermann, also remains in his job." The Journal piece concluded: "All of this, in short, is political smoke designed to disguise what is really a policy dispute. Mr. Bolton's opponents don't want to promote a blunt-spoken supporter of Mr. Bush's foreign policy to help reform an obviously dysfunctional United Nations. They prefer someone who'll subjugate U.S. interests to the 'multilateralism' that is their, and the U.N.'s, dominant ethic. Democrats who vote against Mr. Bolton will be saying they want an Ambassador to the U.N. who represents Kofi Annan, not America."