Dots

Since my May 2 post about what has come to be called the Downing Street Memo, there has grown up a small movement determined to get people to pay attention. A coalition of progressive bloggers have formed the Big Brass Alliance, to get word out, and support the website AfterDowningStreet dot Org, dedicated to keeping the story alive. (Ratiocination is a member, though the organizers seem too swamped to keep their published list properly updated.)

Among the most important features of the Downing Street Memo were the description of the Bush administration's determination to use military force against Iraq, (at a time when they were still saying otherwise) and the phrase "the intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

Now, we have the revelation that John Bolton went to Europe in 2002 to engineer the removal of the top UN official in charge of chemical weapons inspection. That official was proposing sending more inspectors into Iraq, before the war, who, presumably, would have discovered what we now know.

President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the leader of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the leader's firing in a move that a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.

John R. Bolton, then U.S. undersecretary of state, thought Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because Bustani was trying to send chemical-weapons inspectors to Baghdad in advance of the U.S.-led invasion, a former Bolton deputy said.

Bustani said he got a "menacing" phone call from Bolton. The Brazilian was removed by a vote of one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the U.N.'s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, at which the United States alleged mismanagement and called for his ouster.

The United Nations' highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an "unacceptable violation" of principles protecting international civil servants. The Swiss diplomat who chaired the special session now calls it an "unfortunate precedent" and Bustani a "man with merit."

"Many believed the U.S. delegation didn't want meddling from outside in the Iraq business," said the diplomat, Heinrich Reimann, now retired.

No chemical or other weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

Those more prone to tin-foil headgear than myself might at this point note that, should an administration want the ability to short-circuit other UN officials who might interfere with building a case against, say, Iran, or Syria, or North Korea, that having an experienced hand in place in New York would help. But of course, that would be outrageous speculation.

Instead, I'll contemplate the way in which Bolton is so abrasive that he kept getting fired from any negotiating team requiring sensitivity or finesse, and then used the national intelligence apparatus to spy on his former colleagues.