Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. A complete departure. But the point I am trying to make is he keeps pushing the envelope, he keeps pushing the envelope.

Mr. BIDEN. Yes.

Mr. BIDEN. Right.

Mr. BIDEN. Right. I would argue it is being pushed by a person whom everyone would acknowledge is an ideologue, or at least confirmed in what his views are and who seeks facts to sustain his opinion. Look, the big difference, I say to my friend from Maryland, is that every time he tried to do that, repeatedly tried to do that in his job, his present job--every time he tried to push the envelope, every time he tried to intimidate, fire, cajole an intelligence officer to change his reading to comport with his prejudice, there was somebody there to intervene to stop him beyond the intelligence officer. There was the intelligence officer's boss, the deputy head of the CIA; the head of INR; the Deputy Secretary of State, the No. 2 man; the Secretary of State. That was bad enough. But now where is Bolton going? Bolton is going to be the equivalent of the Secretary of State at the U.N. Bolton has, I don't know how large the embassy is, but a very large contingent of Americans working for him in New York City--I am told there are about 150 people there. No one, in that operation, can control the day-to-day, moment-to-moment assertions he is making. No one can say: You cannot do that, John. He's his own boss. Now there is only one person who can do that. Well, the President can always do that. There is only one other person who can do that, and that is the Secretary of State. Go back to the comment our friend from Ohio made, our Republican friend, in the committee. He said, when he spoke to the Secretary of State, she said, and I am paraphrasing: Don't worry. We will control him. Acknowledging that even though you are sending this guy up to what has been a Cabinet-level position, another Cabinet-level officer is going to have to control him. I would respectfully suggest our Secretary of State has her hands full as it is, without having to babysit Mr. Bolton so he doesn't get America in trouble--America; I don't care about John Bolton; I don't even care about the U.N. in this regard; I care about America. This isn't complicated. Anybody can figure this out. Everybody acknowledges this guy is a loose cannon. Everybody acknowledges this guy has done things that, if he were able to do them unfettered, not overruled, would have at least raised the ante in the tension and the possibility of conflict with at least Syria and Cuba, among other places. And everybody acknowledges that he so far stepped out of line in the State Department that the Republican head of the State Department, Colin Powell, had to go down to analysts and say, basically: Don't pay attention to him. You did the right thing. And then the No. 2 man at the State Department, a former military man himself, says: By the way Mr. Bolton, no more speeches by you unless I sign off on them. Now we are going to take this guy, we are going to send him to the single most important ambassadorial spot in all of America's interests, and to make us feel confident, the Secretary of State says: Don't worry, we will supervise him. Come on.

Mr. BIDEN. Please.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, I respect that difference.

Mr. BIDEN. Let me continue.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, not only the community he worked for, but the entire community. This National Intelligence Officer, who remains nameless because he is undercover, did not give his own opinion. He gave the opinion of what was the consensus of the intelligence community. The Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. McLaughlin, said: No, my guy, my CIA officer is right; Mr. Bolton is wrong, and it is wrong to try to get him fired. In addition to both of these intelligence analysts being backed up by their bosses at the highest level--one at INR, the intelligence operation within the State Department, and one in CIA--in addition to being backed up by them, they got backed up by the policymakers who are their bosses--the Secretary of State of the United States of America and the Deputy Secretary of State of the United States of America--both of whom were superior in terms of authority to Mr. Bolton. So it is Mr. Bolton who was chastised by the Deputy Secretary of State as a consequence of these encounters, because the Deputy Secretary of State said: Hey, look, John, in addition to the analysts being correct, you are no longer authorized to make any speech that is not cleared by me; you are no longer authorized to give any testimony before the Congress that is not cleared by me. So not only were these analysts backed up by their superiors in the intelligence hierarchy, they were backed up by the policymakers.

Mr. BIDEN. Surely.

Mr. BIDEN. Let me restate in my own words, so the Senator from Maryland understands. Let's assume there is the country of Xanadu and an American is meeting with the President of Xanadu. In all probability, an American official is meeting with the President of Xanadu. The National Security Agency--with the ability to intercept conversations by multiple methods--picks up a conversation, or somebody's report of a conversation, between an American and the President of Xanadu. That gets reported back, based on subject matter, to the appropriate officer within the State Department or the Defense Department who they feel should know about this conversation because maybe the President said to the American: You know, we have right here in our country 47 al-Qaida operatives. That should go to the person who has that responsibility. So a lot of stuff went to Mr. Bolton because he is the guy in charge of dealing with nonproliferation and other matters. He would get these NSA, National Security Agency, intercept reports. But in order to protect the identity of the American, for privacy reasons, he would get a statement and it would say: On such and such a date at such and such a time, the President of Xanadu met with an American. They discussed the following things. Here is what they said, here is the conversation. That is what I understand to be--I know to be--the way in which NSA intercept reports treat a case involving an American.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, that is correct. Not only did I ask that, but the chairman of the committee asked that, and it was resolved that we were not asking it to be made public, we were not asking those names to necessarily be made available to the whole Foreign Relations Committee, although that was the chairman's preference, and ultimately the chairman concluded it should not even be provided directly to me or the chairman, but it should be made available to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the ranking member or vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and they should decide how our committee would review the information. I think the information should be provided to me and to Senator Lugar, as well, but the way this was parsed out, it was going to be that the National Security Agency was going to come and brief the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which I am no longer a member, and--I thought--tell them the names of these Americans. I might add further, the reason for that is, there are unsubstantiated--I emphasize ``unsubstantiated''--allegations that Mr. Bolton may have been seeking the names of these Americans to seek retribution; that it may have been intelligence analysts with whom he disagreed or policymakers against whom he was trying to make a case in terms of the direction of American foreign policy. I do not know that to be the case. The question is why did he need the names.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, to the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no substantive reason why information that was provided to an Under Secretary of State down the food chain, and the Under Secretary of State's staff, to the best of my knowledge, why the information provided to them could not be provided to a Senator who has served 28 years, as the Senator has, in the Senate.

Mr. BIDEN. If my friend from Maryland will further yield, Senator Lugar, the Republican chairman of the committee, and I received a letter today dated May 25, addressed to both him and me, from the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, saying: It is important to note, however, that our committee did not interview Mr. Bolton, so I am unable to answer directly the question of why he--Mr. Bolton--felt it necessary for him--Mr. Bolton--to have the identity information--that is, the name of the Americans--in order to better understand the foreign intelligence contained in the report. Furthermore, based on the information available to me--the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee--I do not have a complete understanding of Mr. Bolton's handling of the identity information after he received it. Continuing quoting: The committee--the Intelligence Committee--has learned during its interview of Mr. Frederick Fleitz, Mr. Bolton's acting chief of staff, that on at least one occasion Mr. Bolton is alleged to have shared the un-minimized identity information he received from the NSA with another individual in the State Department. In this instance, the NSA memorandum forwarding the requested identity--meaning the memorandum forwarding the names of the Americans to Mr. Bolton--to State/INR--that is the State Department's intelligence agency--included the following restriction: ``Request no further action be taken on this information without prior approval of NSA.'' Continuing to quote the vice chairman of Intelligence: I have confirmed with the NSA that the phrase ``no further action'' includes sharing the requested identity of U.S. persons with any individual not authorized by the NSA to receive the identity. Continuing from the Intelligence Committee vice chairman: In addition to being troubled that Mr. Bolton may have shared U.S. person identity information without required NSA approval, I am concerned that the reason for sharing the information was not in keeping with Mr. Bolton's requested justification for the identity in the first place. The identity information was provided to Mr. Bolton based on the stated reason that he needed to know the identity in order to better understand the foreign intelligence contained in the NSA report. According to Mr. Fleitz-- Mr. Bolton's acting chief of staff-- Mr. Bolton used the information he was provided in one instance in order to seek out the State Department official mentioned in the report . . . It goes on. But my point is, on the one case that Senator Rockefeller knows of, Mr. Bolton apparently violated the restriction which was imposed upon him when he requested the information, and used that information for a purpose different than he requested. Having said all of that, even the Intelligence Committee was not provided the names of the Americans, which is a critical issue.

Mr. BIDEN. Yes, I will.

Mr. BIDEN. And his staff, yes.

Mr. BIDEN. And his staff.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator would yield, not only a refusal to provide them to our committee that has that responsibility, refusal to provide them even to the Intelligence Committee that is once removed from this process--the same information that was made available to one of several Under Secretaries in the State Department and his staff.

Mr. BIDEN. I will be about another 12 to 15 minutes.

Mr. BIDEN. There is no institutional, constitutional, or previously asserted rationale that has been offered in denying access of the Intelligence Committee or, for that matter, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman and ranking member to this information. I do not remember the exact quote. It may apply to the information we are seeking on Syria--I am not sure--saying that they did not think it was relevant, but I do not recall. I say to my friend from Maryland, there was no assertion on the part of the NSA, that I am aware of, that asserted that it was executive privilege or even that it was extremely sensitive. We have access to incredibly sensitive information. That is the reason we have an Intelligence Committee. That is the reason we on the Foreign Relations Committee have cross-pollination on that committee. So there is no reason--the Senator asked why they would deny it. The Senator's speculation is as good as mine. It seems to me they can end this thing very quickly. The only request being made is that Senator Lugar, Senator Roberts, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Rockefeller, and I sit down in a room on the fourth floor of this building that is totally secure, have someone from the National Security Agency come in and say: Here are the 10 intercept reports and the U.S. person names. I know more about--I will date myself--I know more about the PSI of an SS-18 Soviet silo, which is highly classified information. Why am I not able to get information in the execution of my responsibilities under the Constitution that is available to a staff member of an Under Secretary of State? Members can guess for themselves. I do not know why. I know it is just not appropriate.

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, I think Negroponte was nominated in May and confirmed in September.

Mr. BIDEN. It is as though I try to rob a bank and it turns out they shipped all the money out and there was no money there. I walk out and I get arrested. I say: Wait a minute, no harm, no foul, I didn't get any money. I went in to rob the bank, that is true, but I didn't get any money. So what is the problem? What is the problem? Look, I told you about Mr. Bolton's staff, I assume with Mr. Bolton's authority, trying to get the intelligence community to change the groundrules. I gave the one example. There is a second example. He did not just do this once. The e-mail I just described was not a one-time event. Later, Mr. Bolton's staff informed the intelligence community they wanted to change the rules for the review of Mr. Bolton's proposed speeches and to have the CIA and the intelligence community limit their objections only to matters related to the source and methods. They go on, in one meeting with intelligence analysts--a meeting Mr. Bolton called but he was unable to attend at the last minute--his staff informed the assembled analysts that Mr. Bolton wanted to hear only concerns relating to sources and methods from them or ideas that would strengthen his argument. But if his arguments were merely wrong, he did not want to hear about it. Got that? I am not making this up. He, Bolton, calls the meeting of the CIA types, the INR types, to come into his office--he calls them into his office, and I guess he got called away and could not attend. But his staff says: The boss wants to make it clear there are only two things he wants to hear from you. If he wants to say the Moon is made of green cheese, the only thing he wants to hear from you is: You cannot say that because you will give away the fact that we have eyes. We have a source and a method that we do not want to release. Or he wants to hear from you how we can bolster the argument that the Moon is made of green cheese. But he does not want to hear from you if he is wrong. He does not want to hear from you if you do not believe the Moon is made of green cheese. That is none of your business. He does not want to hear that. Look, I don't know how you define an ``ideologue.''

Mr. BIDEN. I think it is pretty close. It is like that famous expression in a different context of Justice Holmes. He said prejudice is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine upon it, the tighter it closes. It seems the more information you gave Mr. Bolton that conflicted with his predetermined ideological notion, the less he wanted to hear it. If you persisted in giving it to him, which was your job, he would try to get you fired. This is not a minor deal. At the very moment when whoever we have as our ambassador to the United Nations is going to be the man, unfortunately, or woman, who will have to stand up before the whole world and say, We have evidence that North Korea is about to do the following; or, We have evidence that Iran has pursued their nuclear option to a point they are violating the NPT--let me ask the Senator, are we going to send John Bolton to a place where we have already squandered our credibility by saying something that we did not know, or saying things we thought we knew that were wrong, are we going to send John Bolton up to be the guy to make a case relating to our national security? I ask my friend a rhetorical question--if, in fact, we fail to convince the Security Council, if we fail to convince our allies and those with a common interest that a threat exists and they do not come along, what are our options? Our options are to do nothing about it or to act alone. That is what I mean when I say I am concerned about U.S. interests. There is a story I first heard from Zbigniew Brzezinski that I have used many times since. The Senator knows it as well. During the Cuban missile crisis, the very time when Adlai Stevenson stood up and said, don't tell me that, we know the President of the United States, John Kennedy, desperately needed--although we could have done it alone-- desperately needed the support of the rest of our allies in the world for what we were about to do, confront the Soviet Union. And he sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Paris to meet with then-President Charles de Gaulle. I am told this is not an apocryphal story; it is historically accurate. Acheson walked in to the Presidential palace, the President's office, and made his case. Then, after making his case, allegedly, he leaned over to pick up the satellite photographs to show President de Gaulle that what he spoke of was absolutely true, and he had pictures to show it. At that moment, paraphrasing, to the best of my knowledge, de Gaulle put up his hands and said: You need not show me the evidence. I know President Kennedy. And I know he could never tell us anything that could take us to war that wasn't true. Do you think there is anyone, anyone, anyone--including our own delegation in the United Nations--who would accept an assertion from John Bolton on the same grounds? Now, my friend, the chairman and others, will argue: Well, Joe, if it is that critical, he will not be making the case. That is probably true. It may be the Secretary of State making the case, who has great credibility. It may be the President of the United States. But there are a thousand little pieces that lead up to building coalitions that relate to our self-interest, based upon an ambassador privately sitting with another ambassador and assuring him that what he speaks is true. This is absolutely the wrong man at the wrong time for the most important job in diplomacy that exists right now. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues, is John Bolton a man in the tradition of Adlai Stevenson or Jack Danforth or any number of people I can name? There is a third reason to oppose Mr. Bolton. This is one that has animated the interest and concern of my friend from Ohio even more than it has me; and that is, that Mr. Bolton engages in abusive treatment of colleagues in the State Department, and he exercises frequent lapses of judgment in dealing with them. Again, do not take my word for it. Carl Ford, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence, described Mr. Bolton--and I am using Carl Ford's colorful language, I guess it is an Arkansas expression; he is from Arkansas--he said Mr. Bolton is a ``quintessential kiss-up, kick down kind of guy.'' He also objected, Mr. Ford did, in strong terms, to the treatment of one of his subordinates, Mr. Westermann. He said: Secretary Bolton chose to reach five or six levels below him in the bureaucracy, bring an analyst into his office, and give him a tongue lashing. . . . he was so far over the line that [it's] one of the sort of memorable moments in my 30- plus year career. Listen to Larry Wilkerson, Secretary Powell's chief of staff, who referred to Mr. Bolton--I am not making up these phrases--he referred to Bolton as a ``lousy leader.'' And he told the committee that he-- Wilkerson had an open-door policy. Some Senators and others have that policy. They literally keep their door open so anyone in the organization can feel free to walk in and say what is on their mind. He said his open-door policy--this is the chief of staff for the Secretary of State--he said his open-door policy led to a steady stream of senior officials who came into his office to complain about Mr. Bolton's behavior. Listen to John Wolf, a career Foreign Service Officer for 35 years, who worked under Mr. Bolton as the Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation. Mr. Wolf said that Mr. Bolton blocked an assignment of a man he--Mr. Wolf--described as a ``truly outstanding civil servant,'' some 9 months after that civil servant made an inadvertent mistake. And Mr. Wolf says that Mr. Bolton asked him to remove two other officials because of disagreements Mr. Bolton had over policy, and that Mr. Bolton ``tended not to be enthusiastic about alternative views.'' If that is not a quintessentially State Department, career Foreign Service Officer phrase: he ``tended not to be enthusiastic about alternative views.'' Listen to Will Taft, a man whose name became known here in the investigations relating to Abu Ghraib and the treaties that were discussed about the treatment of prisoners. Mr. Taft served in the State Department as legal adviser under Secretary Powell during the tenure of Mr. Bolton. And before that, he was general counsel in two other Government Departments, as well as Deputy Secretary of Defense, and formerly an ambassador to NATO--significant positions. Mr. Taft told our committee he had to take the extraordinary step of going to his boss--Mr. Taft's boss--to rein in Mr. Bolton after Bolton refused to work with the State Department attorney on a lawsuit in which the State Department was a defendant. This resulted--I will skip a little bit here--this incident caused the Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Armitage, to write to Mr. Bolton a memo reminding him that the rules applied to him, as well as others in the State Department, and that he was required--Mr. Bolton was required--to work with State Department lawyers. There is a fourth reason, beyond his treatment of individuals--and I could go on for another hour citing examples of his alleged mistreatment of subordinates and colleagues at the State Department and in other endeavors--there is a fourth reason that, all by itself, would justify Mr. Bolton not being confirmed; and that is, Mr. Bolton gave testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee under oath that at best was misleading. Again, do not take my word for it. It is true that I think Mr. Bolton should not go to the United Nations, and I am of a different party. But do not take my word for it. Listen to Tom Hubbard, referred to by the chairman earlier today. Mr. Hubbard is a retired Foreign Service Officer whose last post was as Ambassador to South Korea. During our hearing on April 11, Senator Chafee asked Mr. Bolton about a speech that Mr. Bolton gave in Seoul, South Korea, in 2003. Let me give you some context. This was on the eve of the President's initiative to begin what is referred to as the Six-Party Talks: the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, the United States, and China--a very delicate moment. Mr. Bolton has made it clear, in many speeches he has made, what he thinks of Kim Jong Il, and that is not inappropriate. And he has made it pretty clear that he rejected the idea proffered by me, and I believe even by Senator Lugar, and by other Senators here, several years ago that we should talk to the North Koreans--not negotiate, talk with them--and find out what it would take to make a deal and let them know what our bottom line was. Mr. Bolton is not the architect of, but a disciple of, the policy of containing and putting the North Korean regime in a position where he thinks if enough pressure is put on them they would topple. And we are going back to when he was making a speech in Seoul, South Korea, in 2003, on the eve of the first Six-Party Talks. The speech was filled with inflammatory rhetoric, even though it may be true, about the North Korean leadership. The result of him having given the speech was that the talks were almost scuttled. Mr. Bolton, in reply to Senator Chafee of our committee regarding that speech, said: I can tell you [Senator] what our Ambassador to South Korea, Tom Hubbard, said after the speech. Meaning his speech. He said [to me], ``Thanks a lot for that speech, John. It'll help us a lot out here.'' Got this, now: He makes what is termed an inflammatory speech. He is asked: Wasn't that inflammatory, and didn't that cause us real trouble in pursuing the foreign policy objectives of the President to get these talks underway? And Bolton, in effect, says: No. And then the Senator, in effect, says: Well, didn't our Ambassador to South Korea think it was damaging? And he says: No. He not only didn't think it was damaging, he said to me: ``Thanks a lot for that speech, John. It'll help us a lot out here.'' Now, you would draw from that exchange that this speech was totally consistent with the administration's policy, that it was something that was helpful, and that Bolton was doing a good job. Now, we didn't call Ambassador Hubbard. I may be mistaken, but I think the Republican majority staff got a call from Mr. Hubbard, the former ambassador to South Korea, who I guess saw this on C-SPAN. I don't know what exactly prompted it. Maybe he read it in the newspaper. And he says: I want to talk to you guys. And in an interview which was totally appropriate, without minority staff there, he paints a very different story, accurately reported by the majority staff. Ambassador Hubbard remembers that little exchange about the Bolton 2003 speech on the eve of the Six-Party Talks quite differently. The day after the committee hearing, Hubbard voluntarily contacted the committee to make clear that he disagreed at the time with the tone of the speech and thought the speech was unhelpful to the negotiating process and--this is the important part--and that he, Bolton, surely knew that, that I, Hubbard, thought it was unhelpful and was damaging. Hubbard then told the Los Angeles Times that although he had talked to Mr. Bolton and thanked him for removing from his speech some of the attacks on South Korea. Remember this now, the speech was about North Korea. The only thing the ambassador was able to convince Bolton to do was take out some of the stuff that attacked our ally South Korea, whom, I might note parenthetically, if, God forbid, there is a war, we need on our side. We have 30,000 American troops there. Bolton is making a speech characterized as an inflammatory speech about North Korea and is going to attack our ally South Korea, as well. And our ambassador says: Please don't do that stuff about South Korea. And so Hubbard says: It is true. I thanked him for removing some of the attacks he was about to make on South Korea. Then he went on to say, but ``it's a gross exaggeration to elevate that [statement] to praise for the entire speech and approval of it.'' I don't know how you can comport how those two statements work out. Bolton saying: Remember that the ambassador said, thanks a lot for that speech, John. It helps us a lot out here. And the ambassador is saying that Mr. Bolton knows better. That is a gross exaggeration. In other testimony, Mr. Bolton frequently tried to claim he had not sought to fire or discipline the INR intelligence analyst, Mr. Westermann. He said: I never sought to have [him] fired. He later said: I, in no sense, sought to have any discipline imposed on Mr. Westermann. And finally, he said: I didn't try to have Mr. Westermann removed. This is incredibly disingenuous. It is just not true. The record is clear that Bolton sought on three occasions that I referenced earlier to have Mr. Westermann removed from his position and given another portfolio. And by the way, you don't get another portfolio. If the only job you do in a restaurant is cook and they say you can't cook anymore, there are not many jobs left for you. This guy's expertise was dealing with chemical and biological weapons. Mr. Bolton wanted him taken off the case. As a lawyer, Mr. Bolton surely knows that civil servants have job protections and can't be readily fired. By asking repeatedly that this man be moved from his established area of expertise, he was endangering the man's career and sending a message of intimidation that was heard loud and clear throughout the Intelligence and Research Bureau. Mr. Bolton did not have the honesty or the courage to admit that fact to the Foreign Relations Committee. Where is this straight talker we hear so much about? The President has said that in his second term, one of his priorities is ``to defend our security and spread freedom by building effective multinational and multilateral institutions and supporting effective multilateral action.'' If this is a serious objective, he sure is sending the wrong man to put together these kinds of coalitions. It is manifestly not in our interest to send John Bolton to the United Nations. It is not in our interest to have a person who is ``a lousy leader'' in charge of a mission of 150 professionals who need leadership. It is not in our national interest to have a conservative ideologue who doesn't listen to others trying to rebuild frayed alliances at the United Nations. It is not in our national interest to have a man with a reputation as a bully trying to construct coalitions necessary to achieve U.N. reform. It is not in our interest to have someone with a reputation for taking factoids out of context, exaggerating intelligence information, as our spokesman in New York during the crises to come with Iran and North Korea, when we will have to convince the world to take action to stop nuclear weapons programs. Is this the best the President of the United States can do? Is this the best among the many tough-minded, articulate, conservative Republican foreign policy experts? The record presented by the Foreign Relations Committee is clear. The documents we have uncovered; the interviews with those who had to pick up the pieces at INR and CIA, in the office of the Secretary of State, and in South Korea; the testimony of former Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford, a conservative Republican; all of this record has given us clear warning that Mr. Bolton is the wrong man for this job. Mr. Bolton's nomination is not--I emphasize ``not''--in the interest of the United States of America. I don't know that I have ever said this before on the floor, but I believe that if this were a secret ballot, Mr. Bolton would not get 40 votes in the Senate. I believe the President knows that. I wish the President had taken another look at this and found us someone--I am not being facetious and I am not the first one to say this, I say to my friend from Virginia, the single best guy we could send to the United Nations right now at this critical moment is former President Bush. I cannot think of anybody better. He would get absolutely unanimous support on this side of the aisle. Mr. Bolton is no George Herbert Walker Bush. I guess not many people are. But this guy should not be going to the U.N. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Parliamentary inquiry: Is that for today?

Mr. BIDEN. And there is additional time tomorrow, is that correct?

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Chair.