Former Clinton advisor Sydney Blumenthal has a must-read piece in the Guardian regarding Collin Powell's backdoor campaign against his former deputy, John Bolton (plus Condi Rice's inability to shake the cover-up thing). Killer paras:
The Bolton confirmation hearings have revealed his constant efforts to undermine Powell on Iran and Iraq, Syria and North Korea. They have also exposed a most curious incident that has triggered the administration's stonewall reflex. The foreign relations committee has discovered that Bolton made a highly unusual request and gained access to 10 intercepts by the National Security Agency, which monitors worldwide communications, of conversations involving past and present government officials. Whose conversations did Bolton secretly secure and why? Staff members on the committee believe that Bolton was probably spying
on Powell, his senior advisers and other officials reporting to him on diplomatic initiatives that Bolton opposed. If so, it is also possible that Bolton was sharing this top-secret information with his neoconservative allies within the Pentagon and the vice-president's office, with whom he was in daily contact and who were known to be working in league against Powell. If the intercepts are released they may disclose whether Bolton was a key figure in a
counter-intelligence operation run inside the Bush administration against the secretary of state, who would resemble the hunted character played by Will Smith in Enemy of the State. Both Republican and Democratic senators have demanded that the state department, which holds the NSA intercepts, turn them over to the committee. But Rice so far has refused. What is she hiding by her cover-up?
Could the Bolton nomination be the thing that finally peels the lid off the neocon war cabal? If it is, then how ironic is it that the once untouchable president walked right into it, with the help of Dick Cheney...? |
