UN Ambassador John Bolton appeared before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations on Tuesday to discuss the oil-for-food program, where Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) grilled him on allegations of U.S. Marines operating inside Iran.
It's a classic exchange between ideological foes highlighted by a dig by Bolton on Sy Hersh at the end, when he refers to his recent article on Iran in The New Yorker (page 15 of this document via the Reading Room) as "fiction" that he "doesn't have time for."
REP. KUCINICH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for injecting a note of humanity into these hearings, because it's always good to get the personal connections here. Thank you. Ambassador, thanks again for being here. You spoke of Woodrow Wilson and his view of sanctions as being kind of a mid-point, and we're here talking about the effectiveness of sanctions. I'm wondering about the effectiveness of sanctions if a series of steps have already been taken that leap-frog past what sanctions could hope to achieve. Question: If the United States is engaging in covert antigovernment activity in Iran, is it legal under U.N. law?
MR. BOLTON: Well, the U.N. doesn't impose law, and in any event, it's not appropriate to comment in a public session on anything related to intelligence activities. And so with respect, I will simply decline to discuss that. It's not anything I would have anything to do anyway. My job is in New York.
REP. KUCINICH: All right. If the U.S. has combat troops in Iran, would that be a violation of the U.N. charter?
MR. BOLTON: Congressman, I have no knowledge of that subject at all, and I just don't think it's helpful to speculate on that matter. If there are others in the administration you'd like to talk to on it, I'm sure you could summon them, but it's not anything I'm involved in in any way.
REP. KUCINICH: And what would be a legal justification for one sovereign country to insert its military forces into another sovereign country, under U.N. law?
MR. BOLTON: Article 51 of the U.N. charter provides for the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense. That's a pretty good basis.
REP. KUCINICH: I'll ask that again: For one sovereign country to insert its military forces into another sovereign country. This is not self-defense.
MR. BOLTON: Well, I think self-defense, as the Secretary-General's high-level panel a few years ago recognized, comes in a multitude of forms, and you asked a hypothetical question and I gave you an answer --
REP. KUCINICH: Hypothetically, is preemption self-defense?
MR. BOLTON: It certainly can be, absolutely, as the Secretary-General's own high-level panel recognized.
REP. KUCINICH: Then is Iran an imminent threat to the United States?
MR. BOLTON: Congressman, you know, the president has made it clear that his purpose and his priority is to achieve a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to the threat to international peace and security posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program. He's said repeatedly, as has Secretary Rice, that of course we never take any option off the table, but the priority that we are addressing now, and certainly my responsibility, is diplomacy in the Security Council.
REP. KUCINICH: Do you know of a presidential national security directive on regime change in Iran?
MR. BOLTON: I do not.
REP. KUCINICH: Well, when did you become aware that regime change in Iran was a U.S. policy?
MR. BOLTON: Well, I don't -- I don't think that's an accurate statement of the policy. I think Secretary Rice testified before Congress some -- I guess it's some months ago now -- that we were requesting a $75 million increase in support, to an aggregate level of $85 million for activities supporting democracy in Iran. And I think that is the ultimate objective we speak (sic) -- a free and democratically elected regimen in Iran that we could hopefully persuade to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
REP. KUCINICH: We've seen a report in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh that a U.S. source told him that U.S. Marines were operating in the Baluchi, Azeri and Kurdish regions of Iran. Have you ever heard of that report?
MR. BOLTON: I've never heard of the report. I've never read the article, nor do I intend to.
REP. KUCINICH: Do you have any interest as to whether or not -- as the U.S. ambassador, you don't have any interest as to whether or not U.S. Marines are actually operating in Iran right now?
MR. BOLTON: I said I had not heard of the report, and I didn't intend to read the article in The New Yorker.
REP. KUCINICH: If I gave you this article right now, walked it over, would you look at it?
MR. BOLTON: I don't think so, honestly, Congressman, because I don't have time to read much fiction.
REP. KUCINICH: Well, you know, now if it wasn't fiction, Mr. Bolton, would that be of interest to you?
MR. BOLTON: Congressman, it is of interest to me to be as fully informed on matters affecting my responsibilities in the government as I can. I have no responsibility for the matters you're talking about, and I think that there's a lot of unfounded speculation. The president has been as clear as he can be that his priority is a peaceful and diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and that's the direction I'm trying to carry out in New York. That's my job.
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