Henry Waxman on Bolton

Steve Clemons writes a lot about Rep. Henry Waxman's 1 March 2005 letter to Rep. Christopher Shays, which touches on John Bolton's role in the Iraq-Niger uranium fiasco. Clemons thinks "The Waxman File" may help tip Senator Chuck Hagel into voting against Bolton's confirmation as UN Ambassador, and has been writing flattering things about the Senator's integrity. See this UPI piece.

The letter touches on a number of issues, including Bolton's involvement in propogating the bogus Iraq-Niger story and his staff's subsequent cover-up of that involvement. This is significant because at the time the US Government's official position was that the claim was unreliable. The letter is available in PDF here. However, I think it's helpful to have such things available in HTML format, which was why I put Senator Pete Domenici's scathing comments on Bolton into a post last week. What follows is the section of the Waxman letter that addresses John Bolton. See the original for the footnotes.

From, US Rep. Henry A. Waxman's 1 March 2005 letter to US Rep. Christopher Shays, pp. 5-7 (PDF here):

Concealment of a State Department Official's Role in the Niger Uranium Claim

In April 2004, the State Department used the designation "sensitive but unclassified" to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distrubuted to the United Nations that falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

On December 19, 2002, the State Department issued a fact sheet entitled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council." The fact sheet listed eight key areas in which the Bush Administration found fault with Iraq's weapons declaration to the United Nations on December 7, 2002. Under the heading "Nuclear Weapons," the fact sheet stated:

The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?

It was later discovered that this claim was based on fabricated documents. In addition, both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claim as unreliable. As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet.

On July 21, 2003, I wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for an explanation of the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, in creating the document. On September 25, 2003, the State Department responded with a definitive denial: "Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, did not play a role in the creation of this document."

Subsequently, however, I joined six other members of the Government Reform Committee in requesting from the State Department Inspector General a copy of an unclassified "chronology" on how the fact sheet was developed. This chronology described a meeting on December 18, 2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton "for help developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press." According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr Bolton "agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation," a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.

This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc,'" to Mr. Bolton's office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent abou tan hour after that. According to the chronology, each version "still includes Niger reference." Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.

The Inspector General's chronology was marked "sensitive but unclassified." In addition, the letter transmitting the chronology stated that it "contains sensitive infomration, which may be protected from public released under the Freedom of Information Act," and requested that no "public release of this information" be made. In fact, however, the chronology consisted of nothing more than a factual recitation of information on meetings, e-mails, and documents.

[End]