-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 2, 2007 2:55:03 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Neocon War-Talk Getting Tougher, More Arrogant
Bolton, Former Top U.S. Envoy at UN, on Iran
Bill Varner and Janine Zacharia Fri Mar 2, 12:04 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20070302/pl_bloomberg/agsx72kmtwe_1
March 2 (Bloomberg) -- John Bolton, who helped shape President
George W. Bush's diplomacy aimed at blocking the nuclear ambitions
of North Korea, said those efforts are failing and the U.S. may
have to seek the ouster <by military actions> of the governments in
Tehran and Pyongyang.
United Nations ambassador less than three months ago. The agreement
with North Korea to exchange economic aid for a nuclear disarmament
pledge shows the Bush administration has ``abandoned the principles
it pursued for much of its first several years in office,'' he said
in an interview yesterday.
Talks with either North Korea or Iran won't work, Bolton asserted.
``Unless you're prepared to believe that the Iranians are
voluntarily going to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the
idea of pursuing negotiations is ultimately going to be
fruitless,'' he said.
Bolton's criticism reflected a split in the administration between
those who seek multinational diplomacy and those who are skeptical
that approach can deter countries bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has allowed Britain, France and Germany to ``screw
around'' in nuclear talks with Iran, according to Bolton. The
diplomacy has gone on for ``three and a half years, and that
allowed the Iranians to make enormous progress on their nuclear-
weapons program,'' he said.
Iranian officials insist their nuclear program is aimed only at
building a commercial power-generation industry.
``Regime change in Iran or, as a last resort, military action is
the only thing that will stop the Iranians from getting nuclear
weapons,'' Bolton said.
No `Surrender'
The 58-year-old Yale University-educated lawyer and onetime U.S.
arms-control official said he would go into more detail in a book
he is writing, tentatively titled ``Surrender Is Not an Option:
Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad.''
His criticisms drew a retort from President Bill Clinton's UN
ambassador, Bill Richardson. ``Mr. Bolton's insults to our European
allies and this saber-rattling are irresponsible,'' Richardson, the
governor of New Mexico and a Democratic candidate for president,
said in an e-mail. ``We need tough, direct negotiations with Iran
but also with our allies, especially Russia, to provide a united
front to pressure Iran.''
A spokesman for Bush's National Security Council brushed aside
Bolton's critique. ``He is a private citizen, welcome to his own
views,'' said the NSC's Gordon Johndroe.
Blaming `Bureaucracy'
Bolton, who left the UN in December after failing to win
congressional support to extend his tenure, said he couldn't fully
explain the lack of U.S. resolve on North Korea, except to blame
the ``persistence of the bureaucracy'' in the State Department.
Since leaving the UN, Bolton has returned to the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington to serve as a senior fellow on
foreign policy. He fired a salvo against Bush's accord with North
Korea a few hours after the announcement on Feb. 13 that a six-
nation negotiation hosted by China had arrived at the deal.
While Bolton has been largely alone in public criticism of the
agreement, he was joined Feb. 28 by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-
Florida, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
North Korean Pledges
``What has convinced you and the administration that the North
Korean regime will abide by its commitments in the February 13
agreement?'' she asked U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill at a
hearing. Ros-Lehtinen said the agreement doesn't adequately address
North Korea's transfer of missile technology to South Asia and the
Middle East, and questioned a U.S. commitment to talk with North
Korea about its designation as a state sponsor of terror.
Hill said on Feb. 22, ``We ultimately decided that, even though
North Korea does need to make a strategic decision to get out of
this nuclear weapons business, to realize that decision is going to
require a step-by-step process.''
On Iran, Bolton scoffed at the pace of diplomacy, while cautioning
that a military option has its own drawbacks, especially if there
is a secret uranium-enrichment facility.
``The downside of the military option is that you would incur all
of the costs of having undertaken military action but potentially
not gotten the benefits of decisively breaking the nuclear fuel
cycle at one or more points,'' he said. ``What that says is we need
better intelligence about what the Iranians are actually up to
beyond what is already in the public domain.''
Because of all of this, the U.S. needs to tap the ``substantial
Iranian diaspora'' and ``exploit'' the dissatisfaction inside Iran
to topple the cleric-led government, Bolton said.
North Korea's dictatorship also should be feeling the heat from the
U.S., Bolton said. Easing financial sanctions would be a ``big
mistake,'' he said.
``We have let them out of the corner we put them in,'' Bolton said.
------------------
Iraq 'inconvenient truth' of war on terror: Cheney
by Stephen Collinson Fri Mar 2, 12:06 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070302/pl_afp/
usattacksiraqcheney_070302045450
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Vice President Dick Cheney told Democrats
Thursday to stop "posturing" on Iraq, warning it was an
"inconvenient truth" that the bloody conflict was the key front in
the war on terror.
Cheney delighted core conservatives gathered in Washington for
their annual conference, and upped the stakes in a political tug-of-
war with Democrats, by referencing his Democratic predecessor and
Osama bin Laden in the same sentence.
A day after returning from a trip to Afghanistan that included a
suicide bomb attack on a US base where he was staying, Cheney
borrowed the title of Gore's Oscar-winning global warming
documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
"It is worth reminding ourselves, that like it or not, the enemy we
face in the war on terror has made Iraq the primary front in that
war," Cheney told delegates at the Conservative Political Action
Conference.
"To use a popular phrase, this is an inconvenient truth: in Bin
Laden's words, 'failure in Iraq is the failure of the United
States," said Cheney, who suffers from low opinion poll ratings
nationally, but is regarded almost as a folk hero by conservatives.
Cheney has made repeated attempts to tie the "war on terror"
launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks with the Iraq
conflict, but opponents brand Iraq as a diversion from that global
struggle.
Warming to his attack on Democrats, who are plotting ways to
frustrate President George W. Bush's plan to send troops into
Baghdad, Cheney warned: "If you support the war on terror, it only
makes sense to support (it) where the terrorists are fighting us."
He noted that Congress will soon vote on bills funding US military
operations in Iraq, after Democratic attempts, successful in the
House of Representatives, frustrated in the Senate, to pass non-
binding resolutions opposing the surge.
"I sincerely hope the discussion this time will be about winning in
Iraq, not posturing on Capitol Hill," Cheney said.
"Anyone can say they support the troops ... we expect the House and
the Senate to meet those needs on time and in full."
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