http://www.diplomatsagainstbolton.com/"Dear Senators,
We have noted with appreciation the moves of President Bush at the beginning of his second term to improve U.S. relations with the countries of the European Union and of the United Nations. Maintaining these ties and the willingness of those countries to cooperate with the United States is essential to U.S. security.
It is for this reason that we write you to express our concern over the nomination of John R. Bolton to be permanent representative of the United States at the United Nations. We urge you to reject that nomination.
By virtue of service in the State Department, USAID and Justice Departments, John Bolton has the professional background needed for this position. But his past activities and statements indicate conclusively that he is the wrong man for this position at a time when the UN is entering a critically important phase of modernization, seeking to promote economic development and democratic reforms and searching for ways to cope better with proliferation crises and a spurt of natural disasters and internal conflicts.
John Bolton has an exceptional record of opposition to efforts to enhance U.S. security through arms control. He led a campaign against ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Today, the administration is pressing for development of new types of nuclear weapons. John Bolton blocked more extensive international agreement to limit sales of small arms, the main killer in internal wars. He led the fight to continue U.S. refusal to participate in the Ottawa Landmine Treaty. Today, the U.S. has joined Russia and China in insisting on the right to continue to deploy anti-personnel landmines. John Bolton crafted the U.S. withdrawal from the joint efforts of 40 countries to formulate a verification system for the Biological Weapons Convention and blocked continuation of these efforts in a period of increasing concern over potential terrorist use of these weapons and of terrorist access to the stocks of countries covertly producing these weapons. John Bolton’s unsubstantiated claims that Cuba and Syria are working on biological weapons further discredited the effect of U.S. warnings and U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction."