Posted: 3:43 am ET
[twitter-follow screen_name=’Diplopundit’ ]
Greg Thielmann, a 25-year veteran of the Foreign Service who served two tours in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, worked as a senior staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a senior fellow of the Arms Control Association writes about the potential appointment of John Bolton as Deputy Secretary of State:
I was a firsthand witness to the negative consequences of Bolton’s style and substantive approach while serving as director of the office in the State Department’s intelligence bureau (INR/SPM) responsible for monitoring Iraqi WMD issues. As my office delivered to him the heavy volume of sensitive information provided by the intelligence community, he demonstrated a penchant for quickly dismissing inconvenient facts and rejecting any analysis that did not serve his policy preferences.[…]As undersecretary in Colin Powell’s State Department, Bolton ran into a stone wall in trying to intimidate INR and squelch its independence. But if Trump succeeds in promoting Bolton to deputy secretary under a chain of command totally lacking in government experience, a purge of career professionals in the secondary and tertiary levels of the department seems likely.
Read Thielman’s Bolton: A Prime Mover of the Iraq WMD Fiasco via lobelog.
We are sure that Mr. Thielman and Senator Paul are not the only ones having strong feelings about this potential appointment. A couple of thoughts: 1) The Bolton appointment has yet to be formally announced. Is Bolton, Trump’s Plan B if the Senate rejects the Tillerson nomination? This is an uncommon season, so stuff can happen, but we remain convinced that the Senate will not reject two nominations in a row for the same cabinet post. If the Senate rejects the Tillerson nomination, the alternate nominee will conceivably sail through a quicker confirmation process. That nominee could be Bolton. 2) We don’t know how much Trump wanted Tillerson for this job, and if Tillerson wanted this job as much as the other rumored nominees. This is important because it could indicate how much leeway Tillerson will have in putting together his potential team in Foggy Bottom. Would he have a say on who will be his deputies? Would he pick Bolton? Or would T-Rex cast a wider net?
More John Bolton clips:
Below is a clip with President-elect Trump and John Bolton talking about the United Nations.
#