Reply #9: Dont' forget what Bolton did to the Cuba analysts

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369509/site/newsweek/

Accusations that Bolton pressured intel specialists on Cuba have circulated since at least 2003, when congressional intelligence committees looked into allegations that intel analysts were urged to issue alarming reports about Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons. The hearings produced little evidence of that. But State Department WMD analyst Christian Westermann testified that he tangled with Bolton about a speech on Cuban germ warfare. According to a Senate intel committee report, Westermann says he sent the CIA an e-mail proposing changes in Bolton's speech. Bolton later got a copy of the e-mail, "berated" Westermann and tried to have the analyst transferred. Westermann wasn't reassigned.

The second case Bolton's congressional critics are examining involves a senior intelligence-community Latin America analyst. Congressional and administration sources say Bush foreign-policy aides—including Bolton and Otto Reich, a top policymaker on Latin America—tried to have the analyst, who today serves undercover, fired. They then tried to block him from being promoted because they believed he was too soft on Cuba, and because he was once assigned to President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. Reich tells NEWSWEEK that he believed the analyst's work was "unreliable." Reich says he discussed his views with Bolton and "other colleagues" and that he wrote a secret letter to the analyst's bosses critiquing the expert's work. But a former official says George Tenet, who was then CIA director, resisted pressure from Bolton and Reich, and the analyst was ultimately promoted.