6-06-05, 10:02 am
After a brief delay orchestrated by Senate Democrats, Bush’s controversial choice for UN ambassador, John Bolton will likely get a Senate vote this week, says Senate Democrat Joe Biden.
Opposition to Bolton’s nomination arose when his former colleagues in the State Department accused the deputy secretary of heavy-handedness, ill-temper, micro-management, and abusiveness toward State Department employees.
Bolton’s opponents have cited his dismissive remarks about the United Nations and allegations that he shut out or retaliated against any voices of caution or dissent. Bolton’s first effort to have Bustani fired from OPCW failed to win support of a majority of the member representatives in the executive council of the OPCW. A month later, the US demanded a special session at which Bolton, addressing the entire body, threatened to withhold US dues from the OPCW if Bustani remained in office.
This time Bolton got his way. Forty-eight countries (of 145 members countries) approved Bustani’s removal.
Later Bustani appealed the vote to a higher UN administrative body that denounced Bolton’s charges and threats a 'extremely vague' and 'unlawful.' Bustani did not seek reinstatement.
What does this episode show?
Bolton’s role in the Bustani Affair shows first that Bolton is willing to play the bully role. During Senate hearings, former Bolton colleagues accused him of using his power to bully and threaten subordinates. It is clear from the Bustani Affair that Bolton will use an abrasive, abusive personality trait on the international level.
Second, and far more sinister, is that Bolton was the point man for the Bush administration in thwarting UN efforts to defuse the drive to war with Iraq.
With regard to weapons of mass destruction, Bustani’s organization would likely have found exactly what US military experts have found since: nothing. Thus a major pillar in Bush’s rationale for war would have disappeared.
Throughout 2002 and up to early 2003 the Bush administration claimed to be seeking every diplomatic effort to avoid war. Bolton’s sordid role in the Bustani Affair paints another picture, however. Along with the recently released 'Downing Street memo,' which details a high-level British official’s belief, after meetings with Bush officials, that Bush wanted to go to war no matter what and that his case for war was weak at best, Bolton’s role in the Bustani Affair is evidence that the administration not only manipulated and fabricated evidence for war and that it wanted a war with Iraq as early as early 2002, but that it used it power in UN organizations to block efforts that would have peacefully accomplished the stated goal of disarming Saddam Hussein.
By any standard Bolton’s behavior (not to mention the Bush administration’s policy) is criminal and granting Bolton a seat at the UN mocks any pretense at respect for international law the Bush administration still claims.
Bolton is the poster boy for why much of the world hates the US.
--Leo Walsh can be reached at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
