According to a report in Politico, Friday, a new foreign policy themed Super PAC is being started by former Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton who “predicts national security will become a central theme of the 2016 presidential race.” Bolton wants to press issues of foreign policy and national security in the 2014 elections despite the comedy of errors that is his own record on the subject. This is not the only Political Action Committee Bolton, a former Bush State Department official, started this year. [Politico 10/6/13, Politico 11/3/13, Huffington Post 3/12/13]
John Bolton joked about nuking Chicago, Illinois, as a “needed lesson” to President Barack Obama. “Former UN Ambassador John Bolton believes the security of the United States is at dire risk under the Obama administration. And before a gathering of conservatives in Washington on Thursday morning, he suggested, as something of a joke, that President Barack Obama might learn a needed lesson if Chicago were destroyed by a nuclear bomb. Appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the nation’s largest annual conference of conservative activists, Bolton, one of the hardest hardliners of the George W. Bush administration, spoke at length about Obama’s naiveté and how various nations – Russia, North Korea, Iran – will be exploiting the new president. The most dramatic moment of his speech may have been when he cracked a joke about the nuking of Obama’s hometown. ‘The fact is on foreign policy I don’t think President Obama thinks it’s a priority,’ said Bolton. ‘He said during the campaign he thought Iran was a tiny threat. Tiny, tiny depending on how many nuclear weapons they are ultimately able to deliver on target. Its, uh, its tiny compared to the Soviet Union, but is the loss of one American city’ – here Bolton changes his tone subtly to prepare for the joke – ‘pick one at random – Chicago – is that a tiny threat?’” [Mother Jones, 2/26/09]
John Bolton accused Hillary Clinton of faking illness to avoid testifying on Benghazi. When it was made public she had a concussion that led to a blood clot, he refused to apologize. “I think that she is going to have to testify at some point and, you know, every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world knows the phrase that I’m about to use. When you don’t want to go to a meeting or a conference or an event, you have a ‘diplomatic illness.’ And this is a diplomatic illness to beat the band. I certainly hope it’s nothing serious, but this was revealed in a way that I think that was not transparent, and I think there is an obligation here, especially if Secretary Clinton decides to run for president, to indicate what happened. She may beat testifying this week, but she’s not going to escape it forever.” [Fox News (via RCP), 12/18/13]
Hillary Had A Concussion …. That Led To A Blood Clot …Near Her Brain. “Hillary Clinton’s doctors said Monday that the secretary of state’s blood clot is located ‘between the brain and the skull behind the right ear.’ Clinton remained hospitalized Monday at New York Presbyterian Hospital for a clot that was discovered during a follow-up exam related to a concussion she suffered this month, her spokesman said.” [CNN, 12/31/12]
Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the theory of Iraq’s elusive weapons of mass destruction, “appeared to distance himself” from Bolton’s assertions of Cuba’s biological warfare efforts. “In a May 6 speech, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, declared: ‘The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.’ It was the first time any senior U.S. official had made that serious allegation. Bolton also accused Cuba of sharing dual-use biotechnology with ‘rogue states’ that are enemies of the United States. ‘We know that Cuba is collaborating with other state sponsors of terror. . . . Castro continues to view terror as a legitimate tactic to further revolutionary objectives,’ he added… Asked the next morning by reporters for his comment, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared to distance himself from the State Department. ‘I have not seen the intelligence that apparently led Undersecretary Bolton to make those remarks,’ he said. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was also having difficulty explaining the administration’s position. ‘One of the issues that is always difficult when dealing with bioweaponry is that it is hard to find,’ he said.” [St. Petersburg Times, 5/29/02]
As an under secretary of state, Bolton prevented Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell from receiving vital information on Iran. “John R. Bolton — who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton. In some cases, career officials found back channels to Powell or his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who encouraged assistant secretaries to bring information directly to him. In other cases, the information was delayed for weeks or simply did not get through. The officials, who would discuss the incidents only on the condition of anonymity because some continue to deal with Bolton on other issues, cited a dozen examples of memos or information that Bolton refused to forward during his four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.” [Washington Post, 4/18/05]
Intelligence officials claimed Bolton often wrote false and inaccurate speeches on intelligence matters “not based on anything” but his views. According to a New York Times editorial, “The chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell testified that Mr. Bolton was regarded as so unreliable he was forbidden to make speeches unless they were personally approved by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.” Tim Russert said on Meet the Press, “Government sources tell TIME that during President Bush’s first term, Bolton frequently tried to push the CIA to produce information to conform to — and confirm — his views. ‘Whenever his staff sent testimony, speeches over for clearance, often it was full of stuff which was not based on anything we could find,’ says a retired official familiar with the intelligence-clearance process.” [New York Times editorial, 5/28/05; Meet the Press, 5/1/05]
Bolton called the US departure from Iraq “a tragic mistake.” “America’s complete withdrawal of its troops from Iraq is a tragic mistake. It jeopardises the gains made by President Bush’s (and Tony Blair’s) eminently correct 2003 decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and risks the broader Middle East falling into chaos. Sadly, Bush himself initiated this mistake by agreeing to this end point in our status-of-forces agreement with Iraq, but it was consummated by Barack Obama, who never wanted to be in Iraq, and who is now delighted to pull the plug.” [The Guardian, 12/15/11]