UN: "Unacceptable violations" committed by Bolton (AP story)

[ailsagirl]

Jun 5, 3:56 AM EDT

Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent

John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.

A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.

Bustani, who says he got a "menacing" phone call from Bolton at one point, was removed by a vote of just one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at which the United States cited alleged mismanagement in calling for his ouster.

The United Nations' highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an "unacceptable violation" of principles protecting international civil servants. The OPCW session's Swiss chairman now calls it an "unfortunate precedent" and Bustani a "man with merit."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BOLTON_UN_FIRING?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[pilgrimsoul]

1. This story is SO important

I hope some of the smarter, braver journalists out there will connect Bolton's illegal action with the contents of the DSM and run with it. I mean, on one hand, we have the Downing Street Minutes which confirm that *co had already decided to invade Iraq and that intelligence info was being manipulated to justify invasion. Shortly thereafter, * lied to us all when he said that (1) Iraq had WMD; and (2) all diplomatic avenues would be exhausted before resorting to war. Then, on the other hand, we have the fact that before *co invaded Iraq, John Bolton did everything he could to stop the WMD inspections (getting Bustani fired) to prevent confirmation that Iraq had no WMDs. If that fact had come out before * invaded, *co's purported justification for the war would have evaporated and the American people would never have supported the invasion. To me, these two things together prove that the DSM was absolutely true and that *co knowingly committed treason.

John Kerry needs to talk about BOTH of these things when he brings up the DSM on the Senate floor tomorrow. And the press needs to cover the hell out of it. The proof is out there to convict *co of treason and war crimes. We just need someone in the media to go pit-bull on this and not let go, you know, catapult the TRUTH!

[teryang]

2. That's what happened

No doubt about it.

[ailsagirl]

4. I'm pleased and hopeful to see these stories trickle out...

especially when it's a big-league news organization such as AP.

[wallwriter]

3. This is exactly in line with Bolton's published comments.

He says the UN is useless unless it follows the USA's interests. And the Shrub admin was only interested in war, so Bolton had to help make it happen.