With a vote scheduled Thursday on his contested nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton has told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a policy maker should maintain the right to "state his own reading of the intelligence" even when it differs from that of intelligence agencies.
Mr. Bolton's statement came in a written response to a written question from Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a leading Democratic critic of the nomination, and was disclosed by Democrats legislators opposed to the nomination. They said they would cite it as evidence that Mr. Bolton would adopt a loose standard for accuracy in making statements based on intelligence.
That's from Douglas Jehl's "U.N. Nominee Asserts His Independence on Intelligence" in this morning's New York Times.
The Times notes this issue with intelligence:
Among newly declassified documents being reviewed by the committee are some from the Central Intelligence Agency expressing vehement opposition to testimony on Cuba that Mr. Bolton planned to give in June 2002, at least partly on grounds that Mr. Bolton was presenting as the government's view a conclusion that Cuba possessed biological weapons, when the intelligence agencies were not so certain.
The documents on Cuba were provided to the committee by the C.I.A., and were provided to The New York Times by a Democrat legislator opposed to Mr. Bolton's nomination. Many had initially been classified as secret, and they reflect intense, angry debate between Mr. Bolton's office and senior intelligence officials, including representatives of the National Intelligence Council, that focused in part on whether the intelligence agencies' had a right to challenge some of the planned assertions.
But it shies away from the charges discussed at The Raw Story and by Sam Seder on The Majority Report last night. From The Raw Story's "Larry Flynt: Bush UN nominee won't answer questions about troubled marriage:"
The controversial Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt has waded into the conflict surrounding the nomination of Bush hawk John Bolton to a UN post by revealing Bolton's divorce records and unanswered questions about his sexual past, RAW STORY has learned.
[. . .]
"The first Mrs. Bolton’s conduct raises the presumption that she fled out of fear for her safety or, at a minimum, it demonstrates that Mr. Bolton’s established inability to communicate or work respectfully with others extended to his intimate family relations,” said Mr. Flynt. "The court records alone provide sufficient basis for further investigation of nominee Bolton by the Senate." These court records are enclosed here as an attachment. Mr. Flynt continued, "The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations must be free of any potential source of disrepute or blackmail."
Ruth reports that NPR's Morning Edition also didn't address the charges in their story this morning on John Bolton.
Kara e-mails to note David Johnston's "Terror Suspects Sent to Egypt by the Dozens, Panel Reports:"
The United States and other countries have forcibly sent dozens of terror suspects to Egypt, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. The rights group and the State Department have both said Egypt regularly uses extreme interrogation methods on detainees.
The group said it had documented 63 cases since 1994 in which suspected Islamic militants were sent to Egypt for detention and interrogation. The figures do not include people seized after the attacks of September 2001 who were sent mainly by Middle East countries and American intelligence authorities.
But since September 2001, the transfers have accelerated in part because Egypt has been willing to accept the detainees as part of its effort to root out Islamic militants inside Egypt, a campaign that has extended to countries where extremists have taken refuge. Almost all those sent to Egypt are Egyptian citizens or were born there, the report said.
Yazz e-mails to note Leslie Eaton's "Mrs. Clinton Not at Fault, Prosecutor Tells Jury:"
Before Hillary Rodham Clinton's former chief fund-raiser went on trial here for underreporting donations to her Senate campaign, political speculation has revolved around what if anything Mrs. Clinton knew about his alleged transgressions, as well as what if anything the trial would do to her presidential aspirations (assuming she has them).
A federal prosecutor tried to answer at least one of those questions in his opening statement on Wednesday in Federal District Court, when he told the jury, "You will hear no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved in any way, shape or form."
Indeed, the prosecutor, Peter R. Zeidenberg, said that the fund-raiser, David F. Rosen, tried to keep Mrs. Clinton's campaign from discovering how much money was donated to cover the costs of the star-studded event at the heart of this criminal case. The reason, Mr. Zeidenberg said, is that Mr. Rosen was afraid he would be fired if the campaign found out how much money he had spent on the August 2000 event, the Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton.
Ben e-mails to note Carollotta Gall's "Afghan Protest Against the U.S. Becomes Violent:"
Four protesters were killed and more than 60 injured Wednesday in the eastern city of Jalalabad as the police and troops struggled to contain the worst anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan in the more than three years since the fall of the Taliban.
[. . .]
The demonstrations were started on Tuesday by students angered by a report in Newsweek that American interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center had desecrated the Koran by flushing a copy down the toilet.
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