Who’re The Traitors Now?
Steve Clemons at the Washington Note has the lowdown on exactly who it was UN nominee and ’70s-German-porn-star-a-like John Bolton was spying on, via the illegal use of NSA intercepts:
June 06, 2005
MAJOR SCOOP: Assistant Secretary of State Bill Burns & Libya the Subjects of One Bolton NSA Intercept Request
John Bolton so irritated British negotiators who were working on a resolution to Libya’s WMD programs that they asked the American team on Libya to remove John Bolton from the case. Bolton was dropped.TWN has now learned from a highly placed intelligence source, “with direct knowledge,” that one of the 10 intercept requests made by John Bolton was about Libya. The identity of the U.S. official requested by Bolton was William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. (my emphasis)
This shows a couple of things about Bolton that further underscore his vanity and irresponsibility when it comes to national security issues.
First, Bolton was NOT on a need-to-know basis in the Libya case. He had been removed from that portfolio.
Second, this shows that Bolton was in fact spying on his colleagues and their work. In this case, Bill Burns was his target.
The Bolton Battle is getting ready to rev up again — and this news on Bolton, Burns and Libya may turn a number of other U.S. Senators against his nomination.
— Steve Clemons
Posted by steve at June 6, 2005 11:03 AM
So who is exactly is Bill Burns, and what, other than the usual caveat that one doesn’t spy on one’s own side, is it that Bolton has done that’s so bad?
Title: Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
Name: William J. Burns
State of Residency: District of Columbia
Foreign Service Officer
Appointment: May 31, 2001
Entry on Duty: Jun 4, 2001
Burns is a career foreign service officer, ie a diplomat. Whatever the political stripe of the US administration, career diplomats like Burns continue. Their job is to implement policy, whatever it is, and their continued employment and terms of service are set, not by some fly-by-night politician, but by the permanent federal government. Bolton is a mere appointee who serves at the whim of his poltical masters, ie Rove and Bush.
What we have here is a loyal Bush apparatchik playing hatchetman against his own government, purely for partisan reasons. It’s as though, for example, Blair’s little chum, the newly ennobled Lord Adonis of the Stationery Cupboard, were to co-opt MI5 to spy on one of our ambassadors. (Not that he wouldn’t do it, it’s just that if he has, we don’t know about it yet)
Not to put too fine a point on it, Bolton is a traitor to his own country. And if he’ll betray his own homeland and colleagues, for very little except a pat on the head from Rove and the satisfaction of his childish pique, what, via the UN, will he do to the rest of the world?
