Confirmation of Bolton Would Shatter Intelligence Analysts' Morale

[dweller]

by Ray McGovern

Few have more at stake in the expected Senate approval of John Bolton to be U.S. representative at the U.N. than
the remnant group of demoralized intelligence analysts trained and still willing to speak truth to power. What would
be the point in continuing, they ask, when—like so many other policymakers—Bolton reserves the right to “state his
own reading of the intelligence” (as he wrote to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee)?

Given his well-earned reputation for stretching intelligence beyond the breaking point to “justify” his own policy
preferences, Bolton’s confirmation would loose a hemorrhage of honest analysts, while the kind of malleable
careerists who cooked intelligence to “justify” the administration’s prior decision for war on Iraq will prosper. I refer to
those who saluted obediently when former CIA director George Tenet told them, as he told his British counterpart in
July 2002, that the facts needed to be "fixed around the policy" of regime change in Iraq.

It Has All Happened Before

Bolton’s confirmation hearings provide an eerie flashback to the challenge that Robert Gates encountered in 1991
during his Senate hearings in late 1991, after President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be CIA director. The
parallels are striking. The nomination of Gates, who as head of CIA analysis had earned a reputation among the
analysts for cooking intelligence to the recipe of high policy and promoting those who cooperated, brought a revolt
among the most experienced intelligence professionals.

Playing the role discharged so well last month by former state department intelligence director Carl Ford in exposing
Bolton’s heavy-handed attempts to politicize intelligence, former senior Soviet analyst and CIA division chief Mel
Goodman stepped forward and gave the Senate intelligence committee chapter and verse on how Gates had shaped
intelligence analysis to satisfy his masters and advance his career. Goodman was joined at once by other CIA
analysts who put their own careers at risk by testifying against Gates’ nomination. They were so many and so
persuasive that, for a time, it appeared they had won the day. But the fix was in.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0525-23.htm

history repeats ?
dp

[wtmusic]

1. Bolton is a lose-lose for Republicans

Now that the country finally knows what an asshole he is, if he's in, well, there ain't no way to paint that turd pretty.

If he's out, they look weak. :nopity: