Bush Still Spinning Nukes in Iran

The unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, that Iran ceased pursuing a program of nuclear weapons in 2003, has dealt a severe blow to the Bush-Cheney agenda of forcible regime change in Iran. For several months, the rhetoric emerging from the White House escalated to the point that many observers predicted Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.

But although the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) makes it more difficult to carry out his agenda in Iran, Bush is trying to publicly undermine its conclusions. "I have said Iran is dangerous," he declared, "and the NIE estimate doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world - quite the contrary." Will Bush provoke an incident with Iran and then respond in “self-defense”?

Bush "rewarded" Iran for its help in consolidating U.S. power in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks by inaugurating Iran into his “axis of evil” in January 2002. The following year, Iran offered the U.S. government a comprehensive plan for negotiations and cooperation, which addressed all of Bush's claimed pet peeves about Iran. In Iran's 2003 memorandum, sent to the U.S. government via Swiss diplomats, Iran proposed a "dialogue in mutual respect." It sought negotiations with the United States on the concerns Bush has repeatedly expressed.

Iran proposed “full transparency” to show “there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD.” It also sought to guarantee “decisive action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaida) on Iranian territory, full cooperation and exchange of all relevant information.” In Iraq, Iran proposed "coordination of Iranian influence for activity supporting political stabilization and the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government." Iran agreed to discuss the “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory" and "pressure on these organizations to stop violent action against civilians within borders of 1967." And Iran listed its "acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi initiative, two-states-approach)." This meant Iran would recognize the state of Israel.

The Iranian memorandum also offered to negotiate the following with the United States: "Halt in US hostile behavior and rectification of status of Iran in the U.S.: (interference in internal or external relations, 'axis of evil', terrorism list)"; "Abolishment of all sanctions: commercial sanctions, frozen assets, judgments (FSIA), impediments in international trade and financial institutions"; "Iraq: democratic and fully representative government in Iraq, support of Iranian claims for Iraqi reparations, respect for Iranian national interests in Iraq and religious links to Najaf/Karbal"; "Full access to peaceful nuclear technology, biotechnology and chemical technology"; "Recognition of Iran's legitimate security interests in the region with according defense capacity"; and "Terrorism: pursuit of anti-Iranian terrorists, above all MKO."

This 2003 offer by Iran to negotiate these pressing issues with the United States was an incredible opportunity, which Bush, who claims to pursue diplomacy, should have seized. Yet the White House thumbed its nose at the Iranian offer and then tried to cover up the story.

Why did Bush reject Iran's 2003 offer and now seek to discredit the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate? Because even if all his stated gripes with Iran were resolved, Bush's hidden agenda would not be addressed. That agenda comes into focus on the website of the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank that claims Paul Wolfowitz, Lynne Cheney, Richard Perle and John Bolton as members. Under the AEI's list of "Research Projects" is "Global Investment in Iran."

Just as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was about corporate control over Iraq's oil, Bush's strategy on Iran is about making Iran safe for global investment. And just as Bush lied about the danger posed by Saddam Hussein, he is now lying about the perils Iran poses.

U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei has consistently said there is “no evidence” Iran has ever maintained a program of developing nuclear weapons. Yet even though Bush learned about the NIE report in August or September, according to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, he invoked World War III in the same breath with Iran in October. On December 4, Bush lied about when he learned Iran had no weapons program, saying, "I was made aware of the NIE last week."

Hadley's report on the timing of Bush's knowledge of the NIE is corroborated by a shift in the rhetoric emerging from the White House. During the last two months, Bush stopped talking about Iran possessing nukes, and began referring to Iran having "knowledge" of nuclear weapons, which he linked with World War III.

In spite of the unanimous conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate and ElBaradei's informed judgment, we cannot trust Bush-Cheney to abandon their imperial designs on Iran. Bush will probably provoke a military confrontation with Iran, then invoke the language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq that says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."

Congress must support Rep. Neil Abercrombie's resolution stating that Bush has been given no authority to go to war with Iran.

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Overruling Democracy

George W. Bush claims he wants to bring democracy to the Middle East. But the evidence indicates that Bush only likes democracy when the elections go his way.

The Palestinians, subjected to a ruthless occupation by Israel for nearly four decades, held a democratic election in January. Much to Bush's dismay, they elected Hamas to lead their parliament.

Likewise, voters in Lebanon democratically elected representatives of Hezbollah to parliament.

Yet Bush and his minions are doing everything they can to undo those election results.

After Hamas's election, Israel and the United States spearheaded the imposition of severe economic sanctions against the Palestinians that have virtually crippled their infrastructure. Israel, which continues to control Gaza's economy, withholds about $50 million of Palestinian monthly tax revenues.

When Palestinians in Gaza captured an Israeli soldier and members of Hezbollah in Lebanon captured two Israeli soldiers, Israel unleashed massive armed attacks against the people of Gaza and Lebanon.

Although justified as necessary to free the captured soldiers, Israel really hopes to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah in the process.

The Israel military demolished hospitals, airports, highways, power stations, fuel depots, and entire buildings with their inhabitants in Lebanon and Gaza. Hundreds of innocents have been killed and thousands injured. Israel kidnapped dozens of Hamas leaders.

Since Israel began its assaults in Gaza and Lebanon, Bush has cheered Israel on.

The United States supplies Israel with the sophisticated weapons it employs to slaughter Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act. That law requires military items transferred to foreign governments by the US be used solely for internal security and legitimate self-defense.

"In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place," Bush sensibly observed. But then he continued, "And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel, and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. That's why we have violence."

Wrong.

"Israel's actions in no way can be seen as a legitimate response to the small-scale attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah," Robert Dreyfuss wrote Monday on TomPaine. "Instead, what Israel has done has used the pretext of those pin-prick attacks - a couple of border raids and a handful of errant rockets - to launch a strategic attack whose goals are to crush Hamas and the remaining institutions of Palestinian self-rule and decapitate and destroy Hezbollah politically and militarily in Lebanon."

When Hamas and Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers, they intended to use them to negotiate the release of hundreds of prisoners, including women and children, who have languished in Israeli jails for years in barbaric conditions with no charges against them.

But Israel, with the blessing of the US government, reacted with overwhelming military force, killing hundreds of people and crippling the infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon.

This is not self-defense. It is a war of aggression that violates the United Nations Charter. Israel is engaging in collective punishment in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The United States was the only country to veto a Security Council resolution that would have accused Israel of a "disproportionate use of force" in Gaza. This sends a clear message that Israel can do whatever it wants and Washington will support it.

US Ambassador John Bolton echoed this sentiment when he said there was no "moral equivalence" between the civilian casualties from the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and those killed in Israel from "malicious terrorist attacks." In other words, an Israeli life is worth more than a Lebanese life, in the eyes of our ambassador to the United Nations.

Both houses of the US Congress are poised to express their support for Israel and condemn Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Bush claims that Iran and Syria are pulling the strings in Gaza and Lebanon. Although some of the arms Hezbollah is using are made in Iran, many analysts doubt that Iran or Syria is calling the shots.

So where do Hamas and Hezbollah come from?

These two Islamic resistance movements were born in the 1980s in reaction to Israel's invasion, occupation and oppression.

When the civil war in Lebanon ended, Hezbollah became a political party, winning seats in Parliament, and it continues to function in mainstream Lebanese society. Hezbollah was successful in 2000 in forcing Israel to withdraw from the southern strip of Lebanon which Israel had occupied since its 1982 invasion.

Before 1994, Hamas restricted its guerrilla actions to political and military targets in the occupied Palestinian territories. On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler, shot and killed 29 Muslim worshippers in the Mosque of the Patriarch in Hebron. Hamas took revenge with a new weapon - the suicide bomber.

One of the deadliest attacks was a Tel Aviv bus bombing in October 1994 that killed 23 people. Posters at universities in the West Bank and Gaza read: "Israel has nuclear bombs, we have human bombs." Indeed, Sheik Hassan Yousef of Hamas told the Journal of Middle East Affairs in 2002, "We do not have F-16s, but we do have one weapon that is more powerful than the F-16 or anything else. It is a weapon that is unconventional and at the same time mightier than any nuclear bomb. It is the martyrdom bomber."

James O. Goldsborough, a former columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune, correlated increases in the number of suicide bombers with Israel's stepped up violence against the Palestinian people.

Hamas and Hezbollah enjoy widespread popular support because they stand up to Israeli aggression. Both combine political action and militant jihad with humanitarian, social and educational programs.

As Robin Wright wrote in Saturday's Washington Post, Hezbollah "runs a major hospital as well as schools, discount pharmacies, groceries and an orphanage. It runs a garbage service and a reconstruction program for homes damaged during Israel's invasion. It supports families of the young men sent off to their deaths. Altogether, it benefits an estimated 250,000 Lebanese and is the country's second-largest employer."

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told Wright that he joined Hezbollah after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. "We used to discuss issues among ourselves," he said. "If we are to expel the Israeli occupation from our country, how do we do this? We noticed what happened in Palestine, in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, in the Golan, in Sinai. We reached a conclusion that we cannot rely on the Arab League states, nor on the United Nations," he added. "The only way that we have is to take up arms and fight the occupation forces."

There is tremendous support for Hezbollah among Arabs. Abdel-Menem Mustapha, Egypt bureau chief of the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, said, "The Arab street feels strong sympathy with Hezbollah and Nasrallah, because its pride has been battered, and it is weary of decades of concessions made to Israel by Arab governments."

Journalist Dahr Jamail, reporting this week from the Lebanese/Syrian border, said tens of thousands of Arab protestors took to the streets, condemning Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Jamail also reported that thousands of angry Iraqis marched in Baghdad in solidarity with Nasrallah and denounced Israel and the United States for the attacks.

Bush is determined to control the entire Middle East - propelled by the neo-cons who seek economic and political hegemony over the region, and the Christian Zionists who await Christ's second coming in Israel. William Kristol, editor of the neo-con Weekly Standard, said, "It's our war."

Bush has been itching for an excuse to expand his war on Iraq to Iran and Syria.

"The U.S. Strategic Command, supported by the Air Force, has been drawing up plans, at the President's direction, for a major bombing campaign in Iran," Seymour Hersh wrote in last week's New Yorker. Senior military commanders have warned the administration that "the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran's nuclear program" and "could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States," including endangering our troops in Iraq, Hersh added.

On Saturday, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat claimed that Israel, with backing from the United States, had given Syria 72 hours to pressure Hezbollah into releasing the two captured Israeli soldiers and stopping their cross-border attacks into northern Israel. Washington has neither confirmed nor denied the report.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says, "The escalation in Gaza reflects the failure of Israeli unilateralism, the failure of the Quartet-backed 'Roadmap,' the failure of the US-orchestrated exclusion of the UN, the failure of the international community to end the occupation, and the failure of the UN to intervene and provide international protection in the meantime."

The real tragedy from Israel's recent aggression in Gaza is that it threatens to dismantle negotiations for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. The Hamas-Fatah "prisoners' statement" would confine armed resistance to the Israeli occupation to the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, not inside Israel.

The US corporate media is a mouthpiece for Israeli foreign policy. For example, Fox News Correspondent Bill Hemmer, stationed in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, near the Golan Heights the other day, might as well have been working for Israeli television. He reported, "We took more rockets here," referring to the primitive Katyushas launched by Hezbollah.

George W. Bush, the champion of democracy, is playing with fire. If he continues his uncritical support for Israeli aggression, and follows his "Bring 'em on!" strategy in Iraq with Iran and Syria, he may just unleash the Armageddon he yearns for.

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Bush Setting up Attack on Iran

Now that the mission - whatever it was - has not been accomplished in Iraq, Bush is setting up a potentially bigger disaster in Iran.

Last month, Seymour Hersh revealed that the US military is making preparations for an attack on Iran. Recent events confirm Hersh's report.

The Bush administration is stepping up the pressure on the Security Council to pass a resolution that the US will use to justify an invasion. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, is pushing Council members to vote on a resolution this week.

Hersh wrote, "There is a growing concern among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change."

A former defense official who still advises the Bush administration told Hersh that the military planning is grounded in the belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."

This reasoning is counter-intuitive. Iranians who become the victims of US aggression are much more likely to rally around the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran and fight to expel the foreign infidels.

"Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups," Hersh learned from current and former American military and intelligence officials.

One of the military proposals calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons against underground nuclear sites. That would mean "mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," a former senior intelligence official informed Hersh.

A Pentagon adviser said the Air Force would strike many hundreds of targets in Iran, 99 percent of which have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.

It would not just be Iranians who take the hits, the Pentagon adviser told Hersh. "If we go [into Iran]," he said, "the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle." Our troops in Iraq would be at risk of retaliation from Iran and the Muslim world, according to the Washington Post.

Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, said Tuesday that in response to an invasion of Iran by the United States, Iran's first target would be Israel.

Once again, Team Bush is whipping the media - and its consumers - into a frenzy of fear, this time against a nuclear Iran.

Two weeks ago, Condoleezza Rice said that Bush administration officials "have to be concerned when there are statements from Iran that Iran would not only like to have this technology but would share it, share technology and expertise." Rice also said, "We can't let this continue."

Never mind that Western nuclear scientists said last month that Iran lacks the skill, material and equipment to fulfill its immediate nuclear ambitions, the New York Times reported.

Once again, a "preventive" war initiated by Bush would violate the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of armed force against another country unless it poses an imminent threat, or when the Security Council authorizes an attack.

Bush is following the same route he took on the way to regime change in Iraq. He pressured members of the Security Council for a resolution threatening Iraq. The Council passed Resolution 1441. France, Russia and China issued a joint statement specifying, "Resolution 1441 (2002) adopted today by the Security Council excludes any automaticity in the use of force." In other words, the US would have to return to the Council to secure authorization to invade Iraq.

Bush was unable to secure a second resolution from the Council that would authorize an attack on Iraq. So Bush rationalized his invasion by cobbling together Resolution 1441 and two prior Council resolutions from the Gulf War. None of these, separately or collectively, provided a legal basis for Bush's war on Iraq.

A draft Security Council resolution on Iran, which is supported by Britain, France and the US, was circulated on Wednesday. The next day, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said, "My conviction is that military action is certainly no solution." Russia and China, the other two permanent members of the Security Council, concur with de Villepin's sentiments.

But, as it did in Iraq, the British government would likely support Bush if he decides to attack Iran.

Tony Blair has signaled his support of a US military strike, warning that ruling out military action would send a "message of weakness" to Iran.

Last month, Britain's then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, branded the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran as "completely nuts." He said military action against Iran was "inconceivable," and warned his Cabinet colleagues that it would be illegal for Britain to support US military action against Iran.

On Friday, Straw was rewarded for his candor with removal from his position as foreign secretary. Both the Independent and the Guardian in London wrote that Straw's "fate was sealed" after an angry call from the White House to Blair. The Independent reported that friends of Straw believe Bush was extremely upset at Straw's comment that the use of nukes against Iran was "nuts."

When asked a few days ago about the possibility of a nuclear strike on Iran, Bush stated unequivocally, "All options are on the table."

The Bush administration is undoubtedly pushing the draft resolution as a step along the way to its unilateral use of armed force against Iran.

The draft states that the Council would be "acting under Chapter VII" of the UN Charter. This means that it would be based on a finding of a threat to international peace and security, would be legally binding, and could be the basis for the later imposition of sanctions or the authorization of force.

Yury Fedotov, the Russian ambassador in London, explained that Russia opposed the Chapter VII reference because it is reminiscent of past resolutions on Iraq and Yugoslavia that led to US-led military action which had not been authorized by the Security Council.

"We have serious doubts sanctions would work," Fedotov said. "[They] could pave the way to a military action. The military option is a nonsense. It's [an] adventure that could threaten international stability in this region and beyond."

Indeed, there is no basis for a finding that Iran poses a threat to international peace and security, according to John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran to be in non-compliance with some requirements of the non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the IAEA has clearly said there is no evidence that Iran has diverted its declared nuclear materials to weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, who is not necessarily the controlling power in Iran, has engaged in belligerent rhetoric. "This is deplorable," says Burroughs, "but it does not establish a threat to the peace. There has also been belligerent rhetoric coming from Israel and the United States."

Given the stakes, it would seem logical that the Bush administration would pursue a diplomatic solution and avoid another disastrous conflagration in the Middle East.

Hugh Porter reported in Asia Times that even Ahmedinajad is amenable to negotiation. The Iranians, he writes, are willing to compromise on enrichment if they can achieve security guarantees against attack.

But Bush refuses to talk to Iran's leadership. Richard Armitage,deputy secretary of state in Bush's first term, warns that "diplomacy is not simply meant for our friends. It is meant for our enemies."

When he inaugurated Iran into his "axis of evil," Bush defined Iran as our enemy. Sanctions, or an attack, on Iran would hurt the Iranian moderates, whom the US should view as allies.

Moreover, invading Iran may well achieve precisely the opposite of what it portends to do. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains it would strengthen Iran's resolve to develop nukes. It "is almost certain to accelerate a nuclear bomb program rather than destroy it." Cirincione said, "It's clear to me there's no military solution to the Iran problem."

Bush's threatened aggression against Iran is no more about nuclear weapons than Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction. It is propelled by an agenda of the neo-conservatives and Washington's pro-Israel lobby. The US seeks to control the entire Middle East and its valuable oil deposits by changing Iran's regime, installing a US-friendly government, and building permanent US military bases.

It's deja vu with the 1953 CIA coup that removed the democratically-elected Mossadeq and installed the tyrannical Shah of Iran. After 25 years of tyranny, the Iranian people rose up and removed the Shah from power, replacing him with Ayatollah Khomeini's theocracy. The chickens came home to roost.

Bolton said Saturday, "We are still working to achieve unanimity [in the Security Council] ... but we're prepared to go to a vote without it."

It is time to take the military option against Iran off the table.

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Bushies in Wonderland

Curiouser and Curiouser

On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush swaggered across an aircraft carrier deck and declared "Mission Accomplished." Yesterday, his proclamation was a little more understated. He said it marked "the third anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of Iraq," and claimed to be "implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq." So far, that victory appears as elusive as a greased pig.

While Bush talks victory, the rest of us are debating whether civil war in Iraq is inevitable or whether it has already begun.

Iraq's former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, noted that 50 to 60 people, "if not more," had been killed daily in Iraq since the attack on the Samarra shrine last month. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is," Allawi told the BBC.

Dick Cheney, appearing yesterday on CBS News's "Face the Nation," disagreed. He said that "what we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment civil war, but I don't think they've been successful."

Meanwhile, the US military announced plans to continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-US articles - called "storyboards" - in order to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

First the Sentence, Then the Verdict

At the same time, Bush is preparing for war on Iran. He is following the same pattern that preceded his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In 2002, six months before he invaded Iraq, Bush released a National Security Strategy that purported to justify preemptive war: "The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction - and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."

Last week, in his 2006 National Security Strategy, Bush reiterated his preemptive war doctrine: "If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack ... The place of preemption in our national security strategy remains the same."

Bush's 2002 document previewed his impending attack on Iraq: "At the time of the Gulf War, we acquired irrefutable proof that Iraq's designs were not limited to the chemical weapons it had used against Iran and its own people, but also extended to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and biological agents ... We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends."

In the new document, Bush lays out his case against Iran. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," the document reads. "The Iranian regime sponsors terrorism; threatens Israel; seeks to thwart Middle East peace; disrupts democracy in Iraq; and denies the aspirations of its people for freedom."

The Pentagon created an Office of Special Plans to plan its attack on Iraq. Bush has recently created a new Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department.

Before Bush attacked Iraq, his administration made several statements accusing Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction that threatened our security.

Now the Bushies are rattling their sabers toward Iran.

Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of US Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran is conducting intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and Bush claim that improvised explosive device components manufactured in Iran are being used in Iraq. But Abizaid admitted there's no evidence that the Iranian government is directly providing IED components to terrorists in Iraq.

"I can't tell you whether or not that happened with the orders of the Iranian government," Abizaid said. "But I can tell you that terrorists in northeastern Iraq used the Iranian northwestern border to move back and forth across the border." If there is proof of an Iran-IED connection, he said, that would constitute "a very serious concern."

Recall that we were fed a pack of lies about Saddam's WMDs and a Saddam-al Qaeda connection. Don't be surprised if an Iran-IED connection surfaces soon.

In January, Bush said that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would pose a "grave threat to the security of the world."

Last week, Iran offered to open a dialogue with the United States. But Condoleezza Rice made clear that the talks would be limited. "This isn't a negotiation of some kind," she said.

US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton told British MPs that military action could be used if all diplomatic efforts fail. Bolton also said, "I don't think we have anything to say to the Iranians."

When Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the US push for sanctions on Iran a déjà vu, Bolton retorted, "If that is déjà vu, then so be it, but that is the course we are on in an effort to get Iran to reverse its decision to acquire nuclear weapons."

According to Nasser Hadian, professor of international law at Tehran University, however, the Iranians would like security guarantees and a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. That is what the Security Council resolution that ended the Gulf War mandates. But Israel would also have to give up its nukes, and that would never happen.

Feed Your Head

The majority of Americans oppose continued US involvement in Iraq. Thousands of people around the world protested the war on its third anniversary last weekend.

Bush administration defender-in-chief Donald Rumsfeld tried to head off the antiwar critics with a column in Sunday's Washington Post. "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today," he wrote, "would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis." A curious analogy.

In an unexpected development, the House of Representatives voted in favor of an amendment to an emergency war appropriations bill that will prohibit the use of funds to enter into basing agreements that would lead to a permanent military presence in Iraq. The amendment could disappear in committee, or be applied only to future agreements. The US has already built several huge military bases in Iraq. (See Dahr Jamail, Iraq: Permanent US Colony). But the measure shows that representatives from both parties are tiring of the war.

Besides the cost in human life and suffering, expenditures for the war continue to rise. Spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will increase from $6.9 billion a month to $9.8 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

If the midterm elections become a referendum on the war, the Democrats could recapture one or both houses of Congress. The only way to stop this war is for Congress to cut its funding. So far, there appears to be little appetite on either side of the aisle to do anything other than to give Bush everything he wants.

Don't be surprised if Bush doesn't bother to ask Congress for permission to invade Iran. Remember, he justifies his illegal warrantless spying on Americans by citing the authorization for the use of military force Congress passed shortly after September 11, 2001, a theory roundly rejected by all reputable legal scholars. His invasion will come after a concerted campaign of spinning Iran into New Public Enemy No. 1 in his "Global War on Terror."

Fool us once, shame on Bush. Fool us twice, shame on us.

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Human Rights Hypocrisy

Last week, the President of the United Nations General Assembly announced a new proposal to revamp the UN Human Rights Commission and rename it the UN Human Rights Council. The product of months of negotiations between the 53 member nations of the Commission, the proposal will be voted on by the General Assembly next month. The United States, however, immediately denounced the compromise. John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations, said it has too many "deficiencies" and should be renegotiated.

Bolton stated last month, "Membership on the Commission by some of the world's most notorious human rights abusers mocks the legitimacy of the Commission and the United Nations itself." But Bolton was not referring to the United States, which invaded Iraq in violation of the UN Charter, killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, and tortured and abused prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

The United States and Western European countries have criticized the Human Rights Commission because it has elected countries such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, Libya and Cuba, whom the Western nations have accused of human rights violations.

In a press release issued last week, the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations said, "If any government does not deserve to be part of the Council, it is the one who represents a State that benefited from the slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, that kept a 'constructive commitment' to extend the existence of the apartheid regime, that protects and bestows impunity to the human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other Arab territories, that supported the bloody military dictatorships of Latin America, that today tortures and murders in the name of liberty which the majority of its own citizens do not benefit from, that fails to meet its commitments and obligations of official development assistance to the Third World, and that threatens and attacks the Southern countries."

The United States objects to the new proposal's commitment to the protection of economic, social and cultural rights. The refusal to enshrine rights such as employment, education, food, housing, and health care in US law is the reason the United States has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Since the Reagan administration, there has been a policy to define human rights in terms of civil and political rights, but to dismiss economic, social and cultural rights as akin to social welfare, or socialism.

Indeed, the United States' inhumane policy toward Cuba exemplifies this dichotomy. The US government criticizes civil and political rights in Cuba while disregarding Cubans' superior access to universal housing, health care, education and public accommodations and its guarantee of paid maternity leave and equal pay rates.

The US also opposes the new proposal's affirmation that the right to development is on par with the rights to peace and security, and human rights, as the three pillars of the United Nations system. Last year, the United States and Australia were the only nations to vote against a General Assembly resolution on the Right to Development, which was passed by a vote of 48 to 2, with 2 abstentions. It reaffirmed the principle that the right to development is an "inalienable human right."

A member of the Commission since it was formed in 1947, the US was furious when it was voted off the Commission in 2001. Many countries were angry with the United States for its policies in the Middle East, and its opposition to the International Criminal Court, the treaty to ban land mines, the Kyoto Protocol, and making AIDS drugs available to everyone.

It was only after behind the scenes negotiations among Western nations that the US was able to manipulate its way back onto the Commission one year later.

The new proposal provides that members of the Council will serve for a period of three years and shall not be eligible for immediate re-election after two consecutive terms. This is objectionable to the United States, which wants to guarantee a spot on the Council for the five permanent members of the Security Council - France, Britain, Russia, China and the US.

The United States also wants open voting on Council membership instead of the secret ballot elections that the proposal calls for. The US would like to make it easier to blackmail smaller nations for their votes.

In his statement last week, Bolton also said, "We consider the United States a champion of human rights. It is a fundamental and bedrock tenet upon which our country was founded. Thus, when the United States falls short of the high standards we set for ourselves, we move swiftly and decisively to vigorously prosecute offenders who are US citizens in our courts." Yet only a few low-ranking soldiers and a chief warrant officer have been prosecuted for the widespread and systematic torture and abuse of prisoners in US custody.

Ironically, two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Commission issued a report decrying the torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners by United States forces at Guantánamo. It called on the US government to ensure that "all persons found to have perpetrated, ordered, tolerated or condoned such practices, up to the highest level of military and political command, are brought to justice." The United States, which has refused to allow UN or other human rights experts to speak directly with the Guantánamo prisoners, rejected the Commission's report.

The US has a history of scuttling Commission investigations when they focus on the United States as a human rights violator.

Last spring, the United States refused a request by Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, to meet with State Department officials to discuss the impact the US embargo on Cuba was having on the Cuban people's right to food. Last fall, Ziegler reported that both Coalition Forces and the insurgents in Iraq "have adopted the cutting of food and water supplies to cities under attack." Ziegler noted that "the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited in both international and non-international armed conflict," citing the Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.

The United States likewise pressured the Commission to withdraw Professor Cherif Bassiouni, the Commission's Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan, from his mission after he issued a report critical of the US. Professor Bassiouni accused United States troops of breaking into homes, arbitrarily arresting residents and torturing detainees. He also alleged that US-led forces had committed "sexual abuse, beatings, torture and use of force resulting in death." He wrote, "When these forces directly engage in practices that violate ... international human rights and international humanitarian law, they undermine the national project of establishing a legal basis for the use of force."

"The United States and the coalition forces consider themselves above and beyond the reach of the law," Professor Bassiouni told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! "They feel that human rights don't apply to them, the international conventions don't apply to them, nobody can ask them what they're doing, and nobody can hold them accountable."

Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh concurs. He wrote, "In the cathedral of human rights, the US is more like a flying buttress than a pillar - choosing to stand outside the international structure supporting the international human rights system but without being willing to subject its own conduct to the scrutiny of the system."

The composition of the new Council will not likely differ significantly from the old Commission. "That reality," according to Phyllis Bennis, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, "reflects the failure of the John Bolton-led US effort to impose an entirely new human rights infrastructure on the United Nations, one that would privilege those countries given a seal of approval by Washington to serve on the Council, with others, especially those in bad graces in Washington, prohibited from serving."

In the next few weeks, we can expect some strong arm-twisting by the United States to scuttle the new proposal.

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Nobel Prize Slaps Bush Nuke Policy

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The award was a slap at George W. Bush, who had pressed for ElBaradei's removal just months before. It was also a blow to Bush's policies of dealing with nuclear issues unilaterally, and the US focus on non-proliferation to the exclusion of disarmament - both of which are required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Bush administration tried to engineer the ouster of ElBaradei after the IAEA chief refused to endorse Bush's claims that Saddam Hussein had restarted Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The US also perceived ElBaradei as too soft on Iran, a charter member of Bush's axis-of-evil.

A month before George W. Bush invaded Iraq, ElBaradei told the United Nations, "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." John Bolton, then Undersecretary of State for Disarmament, now United States ambassador to the UN, responded that ElBaradei's statement was "impossible to believe." Dick Cheney said, "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong."

But it turned out that ElBaradei was right about the absence of nukes in Iraq, and his refutation of Bush's allegation that Iraq had bought tons of enriched uranium from Niger has also been corroborated.

A few days before Bush launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom," ElBaradei revealed that the US had relied on fabricated documents to support its Niger claim. This revelation raised the ire of Bush, who had included the false Niger assertion in his state of the union address in order to whip up support for his impending illegal invasion of Iraq.

In the run-up to the war, ElBaradei said, "No, we are not finding any evidence of weapons of mass destruction." He added courageously, "No, we are not going to give the US the kind of report they wanted that would have served as a legal justification for war against Iraq."

ElBaradei is the first UN official to call for Israel to eliminate its secret nuclear weapons program. He advocated a nuclear-free Middle East, consistent with Security Council Resolution 687 that ended the Gulf War in 1991. In Article 14, the resolution spells out the need to create a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction across the Middle East. Ironically, this US-crafted resolution created enhanced powers for the IAEA and arms inspection verification.

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction," ElBaradei said, "yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security - and indeed continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use."

ElBaradei was likely referring to the hypocrisy of the United States, which continues to expand its nuclear arsenal and promulgate policies that would allow it to pre-emptively use its nukes, all the while setting its sights on countries like Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs.

The Pentagon's March 15th "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" provides for the US to use nuclear weapons to counter potentially overwhelming conventional adversaries, to secure a rapid end of a war on US terms, or simply "to ensure success of US and multinational operations."

By standing up to the mighty United States, ElBaradei showed uncommon courage, leading the Nobel Committee to describe him as "an unfraid advocate of new measures to strengthen" the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

The US and ElBaradei are squaring off again, this time over Iran. ElBaradei says there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. In an attempt to discredit him, the US eavesdropped on dozens of phone calls between ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, according to the Washington Post.

But the United States' efforts to collect ammunition against ElBaradei were unsuccessful. When his re-election was put up for a vote, 34 of the IAEA countries voted for ElBaradei to continue as head of that organization. Only the US voted no.

Although the IAEA recently passed a resolution that discusses the possibility of sending the issue of Iran's nuclear capacity to the Security Council, the Nobel Prize may embolden the IAEA to stand up to US pressure to refer Iran to the Council, according to Phyllis Bennis from the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.

"The fact that the United States government doesn't like the government of Iran doesn't give them the right to impose their own version of what the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] requires and doesn't require," Bennis said on Democracy Now!

The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, whose highly classified findings were disclosed by the Washington Post, reported the intelligence community's consensus judgment that Iran remains 6 to 10 years away from the threshold of nuclear weapons capability.

Dr. Vojin Joksimovich, a nuclear engineer in San Diego, told me that Iran is not violating the NPT by its civilian use of nuclear power. Although there is no right to enrich uranium to 90 percent or more, which would be weapons grade material, Iran is enriching to 3 to 5 percent for fuel for nuclear power plants, according to Joksimovich. Brazil, he said, is also enriching uranium using the centrifuge technique that Iran wants to use. But the US doesn't challenge Brazil; Bush seeks to build a case for war with Iran.

In a dejá vu from the run-up to "Operation Iraqi Freedom," Bush began rattling the sabers against Iran in August. He declared on Israeli television that "all options are on the table" if Tehran does not comply with international demands.

Bush might think that attacking Iran would bolster the Republican Party's showing in the 2006 mid-term elections, by distracting attention from his failed Iraq war. Ironically, the Bush administration is supporting Iraq's Shiite government, which has close ties to Iran.

ElBaradei said in August that the only way to resolve the situation with Iran "is through negotiation." German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder responded to Bush's threatening comments by saying, "Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."

Russia agrees that diplomacy is the answer. A statement on the ministry's web site said, "We favor further dialogue and consider the use of force in Iran counter-productive and dangerous, something which can have grave and hardly predictable consequences ... We consider that problems concerning Iraq's nuclear activities should be solved through political and diplomatic means, on the basis of international law and Tehran's close cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Bennis hopes the peace prize will encourage ElBaradei to call directly on the five nuclear powers (who also happen to be the veto-bearing members of the Security Council), and particularly the United States, to give up their nuclear arsenals, as required by the NPT.

Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, countries that don't have nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them, in exchange for the promise from nuclear states to progressively disarm. Disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin or two contractual promises exchanged. Thus, when the Bush administration unilaterally decides not to disarm, but instead to develop and even contemplate using new nukes, it is in flagrant violation of the NPT. The US cannot "choose" non-proliferation over disarmament.

Tragically, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation were omitted from the Outcome Document at last month's UN Summit that marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. It was the Bush administration that insisted on the omission.

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Bush & Bolton: The Bully Twins

George Bush and John Bolton have a symbiotic relationship. They need each other to nail shut the coffin of the United Nations, to make the world safe for US domination.

Bolton's record of cooking intelligence to whip up US aggression against other countries fits nicely with Bush's modus operandi. In 2002, while Bush told Tony Blair they would invade Iraq together, Bolton orchestrated the ouster of Jose Bustani, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, to prevent him from inspecting and revealing that Saddam Hussein had no chemical weapons. Had Bustani sent chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad, that might have defused the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined the US rationale for war. All the while, Bush lied to the American people, "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope that the use of force will not become necessary."

Bush's choice for US ambassador to the UN is also famous for hyping threats posed by Cuba and Syria, and taking a dangerously combative stance toward North Korea.

It is noteworthy that the US State Department has made positive diplomatic steps since Bolton stepped down from his post as undersecretary of state. US negotiators have finally secured a breakthrough with Russia to eliminate enough plutonium to fuel 8,000 nuclear bombs. The administration abandoned its campaign to remove the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And, for the moment, Team Bush is talking to our European allies to achieve a peaceful solution to the problem of Iran's nuclear program. But rest assured that Bolton is ready to do what he does best - wreak havoc - if he is confirmed as US ambassador to the UN.

If former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter is right about US designs on Iran - the way he called George W. Bush's Iraq charade early on - Bolton as UN ambassador can be expected to pave the way for a US attack on Iran.

In his op-ed on Al Jazeera on Sunday, Ritter claimed that the US war with Iran has already begun. He cited American flights over Iran with pilotless drones, CIA-backed actions by an Iranian opposition group, and US military preparations for a base of operations in Azerbaijan to support a massive military presence from which the US could launch a land-based campaign to capture Tehran.

If Bolton becomes US ambassador to the UN, he will escalate the rhetoric and the pressure on other Security Council members against Iran, the third member of Bush's "axis of evil."

Despite the tenacity of Democratic senators in insisting the administration come clean about Bolton's hit list, Bush is likely taking Cheney's advice to hold tight and force an "up-or-down" senatorial vote on Bolton.

Bush could take the easy way out with a recess appointment come Independence Day. But that wouldn't fly quite like Bush's last two end-runs around the Senate, when he installed Charles Pickering and Bill Pryor, two right-wing judges, on the federal bench. (See Bush's Judges: Right-Wing Ideologues.)

The United Nations is slated to consider Kofi Annan's proposed UN reforms in September, and Bush is eager to have his bully on the job to push the Bush agenda of taking over the UN. If Bolton is unilaterally appointed by Bush, he would enter the job hobbled with a lack of support and a term that will end with the 2006 Congress.

Bush opposed the House of Representatives' decision last week to cut US dues unless the UN goosesteps to the right-wing Republican program. Bush wants to maximize his chances for remaking the UN in his own image, and the dues ultimatum wouldn't play well with his fellow permanent Security Council members. For example, Annan's proposal to interpret "preventive war" as consistent with the UN Charter will be championed by Bush, but opposed by most other countries.

If Bush really wanted to woo his colleagues at the UN, he would attend the 60th anniversary celebration of the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco later this month. But like Cheney during the Vietnam War, Bush has other priorities, and won't be traveling to San Francisco to honor the world's premier peace-building organization.

As United States ambassador to the UN, John Bolton would walk in lockstep with his twin bully, George Bush. And the promise of the United Nations in 1945, to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," will be rendered even more hollow.

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Enforcing US Human Rights Laws

Challenging US Human Rights Violations Since 9/11
Ann Fagan Ginger, ed., Prometheus Books, 2005, 574 pp.

The Bush administration is using the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as an excuse to launch a massive assault on the human rights of people throughout the world. From the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to the torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in US custody, and the insidious profiling and harassment of Arabs and Muslims in the US, Team Bush has engaged in unprecedented violations of US and international law, under the guise of fighting "the war on terror."

Bush has done nothing to hide his contempt for the United Nations and our treaty commitments, which are part of US law under the Constitution. When Security Council approval for his war on Iraq was not forthcoming, Bush threatened the UN with becoming "irrelevant." Nothing exemplifies Bush's disdain for the United Nations better than his nomination of John Bolton, avowed UN-hater, for US ambassador to the UN. And although the 60-year anniversary of the founding of the United Nations will take place later this month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former President George H.W. Bush will not attend, and George W. Bush has not announced that he plans to travel to San Francisco for this momentous occasion.

The administration's terrorizing of people at home and abroad has been chronicled by Prof. Ann Fagan Ginger, Executive Director of Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, in her new book, Challenging US Human Rights Violations Since 9/11. For the first time, a listing of Team Bush's breaches of our laws since Sept. 11 has been amassed in one place. Ginger presents reports of 180 alleged violations, in 30 categories, by the White House; the Pentagon; the Departments of State, Justice, and Labor; the FBI; the Attorney General; immigration officials; and state and local police against people in the United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and elsewhere. Each report includes the sources for the allegation, and each section lists the specific US and international laws allegedly violated.

In this unique book, Ginger has collected reports on the basic rights of all peoples under US jurisdiction: the right not to be killed or disappeared; the right not to be tortured or ordered to torture; the right peaceably to assemble and petition the government; the right to equal protection regardless of race or national origin; the right to equal protection for women; the right to free exercise of religion; the right of the media to report facts and not be killed; the right to privacy vs. surveillance and registration; the right of libraries not to report on readers; the right of universities to accept foreign scholars and students; and the right to travel.

Some examples of violations include the "disappearing" of 3,000 men in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban; the use of napalm in Iraq, cluster bombs in Afghanistan, and depleted uranium in both Iraq and Afghanistan; the killing and torture of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and abuse of prisoners in US prisons; the arrest of animal rights activists, hailed by the Bush administration as a blow against terrorism; the pepper spraying of environmental and antiwar activists in Portland, OR; the firing of journalists for criticizing Bush; and the failure of the US government to comply with its duty to report human rights violations to the US Civil Rights Commission, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and the UN Human Rights Committee. Judge Richard Margolis said he personally saw police commit 20 felonies during anti-globalization demonstrations in Miami.

The US government has corresponding duties to we-the-people, also listed in Ginger's reports. They include the duty to count the votes accurately and report to the people honestly; the duty to obey the Constitution, the law of nations, and the laws of war; the duty to protect people's rights; the duty to properly fund the general welfare; and the duty to report violations to Congress and the UN.

Ginger cites the specific laws violated, and documents what people are doing to challenge those violations, both in the courts and in the political arena. She provides the basic text of the US Constitution, the UN Charter, and other ratified human rights and antinuclear weapons treaties. The specific statutes at issue, including the Patriot Act, are listed in each report.

The City Council of Berkeley, CA passed a resolution to submit Ginger's reports to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. On March 31, representatives of the National Lawyers Guild, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, Gold Star Families for Peace, and Center for Constitutional Rights, whose work is memorialized in the reports, were on hand for the presentation in New York.

Ann Fagan Ginger has compiled a shocking compendium of human rights violations by the Bush administration. But, unlike prior works, she presents remedies for these transgressions in a well-organized book accessible to activists, lawyers, students, teachers, union members, government officials and judges. This gripping work is an indispensable tool for citizens and lawyers defending civil liberties in the era of the Patriot Act and the War on Terrorism. Prof. Ginger is making several presentations per week, inviting listeners to share their experiences of violations, and fight backs, following some of the new paths for action in the book. She can be contacted at MCLI@mcli.org.

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Bully Bolton Threatens National Security

John Bolton is the wrong man for the job of US ambassador to the United Nations. His status as an avowed UN-hater, standing alone, disqualifies him. But there are other, stronger reasons to reject his appointment to that important post.

Bolton's performance in his current position as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security has made the American people less safe. Bolton has been charged, since 2001, with halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But on Bolton's watch, the proliferation problem has gotten worse, not better.

Fewer weapons-grade nuclear materials were secured in the two years after September 11, 2001, than in the preceding two years.

North Korea, which had two nuclear weapons, now has eight. Bolton's scathing insults of President Kim Jong Ill provoked a dangerous reaction from the North Koreans, who called Bolton "human scum" and a "bloodsucker" who was "not entitled to take part in the [six-nation] talks.. "We have decided," they declared, "not to consider him as an official of the US administration any longer nor to deal with him."

On Bolton's watch, Iran has increased its nuclear program. Alarmingly, Bolton often blocked former Secretary of State Colin Powell from receiving “information vital to US strategies on Iran,” according to today's Washington Post.

Bolton successfully pushed to cut funding for the Nunn-Lugar program to halt the proliferation of nuclear materials, and failed to conclude a Plutonium Disposition Agreement with Russia to eliminate 70 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

Bolton has widely been considered responsible for the defeat of the Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would have created an inspection system to protect us against these deadly weapons. This is documented by Nicole Deller and John Burroughs from the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.

In short, Bolton's resume shows that he has earned a failing grade in arms control.

But the most important reason to reject Bolton's appointment to the UN post is the brutal way he conducts business. His modus operandi poses a real danger to the future security of the United States. Over and over again, Bolton has bullied his inferiors and even a non-governmental employee to get his way. And his way has led repeatedly to the proliferation of false intelligence that could endanger our national security.

Had Bolton not been reined in by the CIA, his exaggerated claims that Cuba had a biological weapons program, and that Syria had chemical and biological weapons programs, could have proved disastrous for the US.

And it was Bolton who pressed for the inclusion of the lie about Iraq seeking to buy uranium from Niger in Bush's State of the Union address, a lie that helped build the case for the unnecessary war with Iraq that has killed 1556 American troops.

Bolton retaliated against at least three intelligence officers who disagreed with him about national intelligence policy. The judgments of the analysts ultimately proved correct; Bolton was wrong on all three occasions.

Former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford, a conservative Republican and enthusiastic supporter of Bush and Cheney, testified Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ford, who called Bolton a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" who "abuses his authority with little people," characterized Bolton as a "serial abuser."

Most significantly, Ford told the Senators that Bolton's treatment of intelligence analyst Christian Westermann, who rightfully disagreed with Bolton about whether Cuba had a biological weapons program, had a chilling effect on intelligence analysis in the State Department. In the present historical period, the use of false intelligence could have catastrophic consequences.

The second official incident involved Fulton Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America. After Bolton tried, unsuccessfully, to pressure him to tailor his conclusion about Cuba's biological weapons program, Bolton sought to have Armstrong removed from his post. John McLaughlin, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he intervened to prevent Bolton's unorthodox request. John Gannon, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said he thought Bolton's behavior had been "inexcusable."

The third documented abuse of a government official by Bolton occurred in 2003, when Rexon Ryu, a State Department nonproliferation analyst, allegedly failed to produce a document for Bolton's chief of staff. Bolton charged Ryu with insubordination and concealing information. A former senior State Department official described Ryu as having such a "sharp mind, good analytical skills, and unimpeachable integrity," that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage later hired him as a special assistant. Ryu is currently on temporary assignment to the staff of Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Another example of Bolton's inappropriate, and indeed, outrageous, behavior was documented in a letter Melody Townsel sent to the Senator Foreign Relations Committee. Townsel, stationed in Kyrgyzstan on a US AID project, became the object of Bolton's wrath in 1994. After she complained about the incompetence, poor contract performance, and inadequate funding of the project by a contractor who happened to be represented by John Bolton, Townsel met Bolton. She wrote that Bolton "proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door, and generally behaving like a madman." Townsel also claimed Bolton falsely charged that she was headed for federal prison for misuse of funds, and threatened that other key employees or contractors would also find themselves the target of federal investigations if they refused to cooperate with him. Townsel maintained that Bolton's behavior "wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological."

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is still considering whether to send Bolton's name to the Senate floor for confirmation. Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, who has expressed doubts about Bolton's suitability, will likely cast the pivotal vote. After Ford testified before the committee last week, Chafee described the Westermann affair as an isolated incident. Now that additional episodes of Bolton's dangerous bullying have emerged, Chafee might be persuaded to vote against Bolton.

The New York Times editorialized Wednesday, "Trying to tailor intelligence is enough to disqualify Mr. Bolton from this job. With America's credibility as low as it is, the last thing the nation needs is a United Nations envoy who tried to force intelligence into an ideological construct."

If John Bolton is confirmed as US ambassador to the United Nations, our national security will be seriously compromised in these already perilous times.

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Senators Challenge Bolton on Contempt for UN

John Bolton refused to come clean at his confirmation hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, playing down his contempt for the UN and for international law. Bolton, who claimed in 1994, "there is no such thing as the United Nations," pledged to forge a "close partnership" with the UN if confirmed as US Ambassador to the United Nations.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Cal) confronted Bolton with a videotape of a 1994 speech in which he said, caustically, "If the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." Boxer said, "I see the anger, the hostility. What we saw here was the real John Bolton."

Boxer then observed, "My overall assessment, Mr. Bolton, is that you have nothing but disdain for the United Nations. It's hard for me to know why you'd want to work at an institution that you said didn't even exist."

Bolton, Bush's most controversial nominee among many, explained his statement that the UN "does not exist" with his theory of "the fallacy of false concreteness" - the United Nations does not exist apart from the member states which comprise it. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill) turned Bolton's characterization back on him, saying it follows that we should not then blame the United Nations for the corruption in the oil-for-food program - the responsibles were member states, not the UN itself. Conservatives have recently used the oil-for-food scandal to discredit the UN.

The major theme that ran throughout the questioning was that Bolton is an ideologue who manipulates intelligence to fit his own analysis, and his acrimonious temperament may pose a threat to our security.

Obama challenged Bolton for his overstatement of Syria's aggressive capabilities, saying, "The CIA had to reign you in." He criticized Bolton's claim that Libya surrendered its weapons of mass destruction program as a result of watching the US get tough with Iraq. Obama contended that diplomacy convinced Libya. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) pointed out that Bolton may have actually tried to scuttle the diplomatic dialogue between the US and Libya. Bush also shuns diplomacy in favor of bullying less powerful nations.

In North Korea, Iran and Syria "we can't afford to cry wolf," Obama told Bolton. "If we gild the lily and overstate our case," said Obama, it will harm our troops abroad and our national security.

Kerry also zeroed in on whether Bolton might make us less safe, saying, "We've just come off the most massive intelligence failure in history." Kerry maintained it's vital to the security of the American people to know whether Bolton was a party to that failure.

Much of the questioning focused on Bolton's allegation that Cuba had a biological weapons program, and his retaliation against two intelligence experts who challenged his now-discredited view. Bolton insisted his differences with the two were procedural, that they had gone behind his back with their suggested changes to his proposed speech. The Senators successfully established that Bolton really quarreled with the content of the criticism.

Bolton had wanted to say, "The United States believes Cuba has a developmental offensive biological warfare program and is providing assistance to other to rogue state programs." After it was vetted by numerous intelligence agencies, the language was softened to say, "Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states." Cuba, which has an advanced biomedical program, adamantly denies it has ever had a biological weapons program of any sort. And ironically, two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bolton vehemently opposed the Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would have required member states, including the US, to submit to inspections of their biological weapons.

Bolton denied trying to have the two men who disagreed with him fired. Members of the Senate committee, however, spoke with seven intelligence officials who contradicted Bolton's assertion. One said Bolton had dismissed the opinion of Christian Westermann, the chief bioweapons analyst at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, as "a midlevel INR munchkin analyst." Boxer noted that this "midlevel munchkin" was a war hero who served in the US military for 23 years.

The toughest questions didn't come just from the Democrats on the committee. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, referring to Iraq, asked Bolton, "How could the UN weapons inspectors be so right and us so wrong?... How could the UN inspectors be right and how did we miss it?" To bolster the case for war with Iraq, Bolton pushed for Bush to include in his State of the Union address the false statement about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger, over the opposition of the State Department.

When Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis) asked Bolton whether the United States made a mistake by failing to stop the genocide in Rwanda 11 years ago, Bolton had no substantive response. "We don't know if it was logistically possible to do anything different," Bolton replied. "Your answer is amazingly passive," Feingold told Bolton.

Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del), the ranking Democrat on the committee, said he had "grave concern" about Bolton as UN ambassador. "We need a strong voice in New York who knows the UN and who can advance our reform agenda," Biden asserted. "And I fear that knowing your reputation - and your reputation is known well at the UN - people will be inclined to tune you out." Biden was concerned that sending Bolton to New York would be "like sending a bull into a China shop."

Even if all 8 Democrats on the committee vote against the Bolton nomination, it could go to the full Senate unless at least one Republican joins them. Senator Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican from Rhode Island, who faces reelection next year, has received tremendous pressure from his heavily Democratic constituency, "overwhelmingly" opposed to Bolton's nomination. Although Chafee charged that Bolton's sharp comments about North Korean president Kim Jong Ill "seem to be impeding our progress" in the talks over Pyongyang's nuclear program, the Senator said he was leaning toward voting for Bolton anyway.

Yesterday's hearing was interrupted by protestors from Code Pink, a women's peace group, who carried signs saying "No Bolton - Yes UN" and "Bolton = Proliferation." They were escorted out of the hearing room.

The hearing continues today with the testimony of other witnesses, including some of the intelligence officials who dispute Bolton's report of his handling of the Cuba intelligence matter.

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