Nomintation of John Robert Bolton to Be the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations--Continued

Floor Speech

NOMINATION OF JOHN ROBERT BOLTON TO BE THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE UNITED NATIONS--Continued -- (Senate - May 26, 2005)

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations.

There are two issues at stake. First is an issue of whether this Senate will receive critical information so that we can deliberate carefully and thoroughly about Mr. Bolton's nomination. So far, the State Department, as my colleagues, Senators DODD and BIDEN, pointed out, failed to provide information under the theory that they get to decide what we should know when we are casting a vote as important as ambassador to the United Nations. It is a novel theory, but it holds no water. If we allow this to go on, it will make the Senate irrelevant when it comes to major decisions about nominations and major decisions about the future policy of the country.

The second issue is the qualifications of Mr. Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations. For me, this is not a particularly hard vote. I opposed Mr. Bolton's nomination to be Assistant Secretary for Arms Control. That was based upon my review of his record, his statements, and his commitment to arms control and counterproliferation. Frankly, I think over the last several years--the record is mixed, but in large part it suggests that his duties there certainly don't warrant a promotion to be ambassador to the U.N.

He was instrumental in establishing the Proliferation Security Initiative, which is a potentially useful framework, but as CRS pointed out:

Without greater resources, legal authority or technical tools for interdiction, the success of PSI may rest on a political commitment of like-minded states to follow through.

In a sense, after all of the initial hype, there does not appear to be the followthrough necessary to make this work. That was on Mr. Bolton's watch.

He also negotiated the 2002 Moscow Treaty, but this is an interesting arms control treaty. It has no verification regime. There is no requirement for either side to make adjustments in the status of nuclear weapons until the last day of the treaty, which is years from now. It has no provisions for continuing negotiations. Again, more style than substance, more press release than real progress.

Secretary Rice has indicated that Mr. Bolton was involved in negotiations which led to a significant breakthrough--the renunciation of nuclear weapons by the Government of Libya. However, if you listen to British officials participating in the negotiations, they requested that the White House take Mr. Bolton off the negotiating team because he was undermining their potential for success.

While Mr. Bolton was an Under Secretary for State for Arms Control, the United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty, becoming the first nation since World War II to withdraw from a major international security agreement.

Mr. Bolton also blocked efforts to add a verification clause to the Bioweapons Convention, blocked negotiations in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament with respect to the weaponization of space, and worked to weaken a treaty on small arms trafficking.

That is not the record of somebody who is an Arms Control Under Secretary committed to ending proliferation. If you look at North Korea, when he took over, they had, at most, two nuclear weapons. Now, North Korea may have as many as eight--four times the peril and danger. That is not a record that compels a promotion.

I think this is a situation in which other factors have come into play--assertions and allegations that he has pushed the envelope with respect to intelligence, about threats from Syria and other countries. Again, this is not a record that deserves promotion, a record of someone who is in a challenging world and is able to make a major, positive difference with respect to arms control, and it reflects the administration's disdain for the process of arms control and counterproliferation.

Now Mr. Bolton has been nominated to be ambassador to the U.N. And once again, Mr. Bolton is reflecting the administration--this time their disdain for the U.N. I believe that is wrong.

We should have recognized, after our experience in Iraq, that we cannot go it alone. As unpleasant as international organizations can be sometimes, as inefficient and unworkable as they are at times, in the long run we are better when we ally with other nations than striking out alone. Mr. Bolton has a different view of the U.N.

In 1994, he stated:

There is no such thing as the United Nations. .....If the U.N. Secretariat Building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

That is a narrowed-minded view and not historical. The U.N. has made a difference.

Repeatedly, Mr. Bolton talked about his disdain for the U.N. In 1998, he was responding to the ramifications of not paying U.N. dues. In his words:

Not only do I not care about losing the General Assembly vote, but actually see it as a ``make my day'' outcome.

That is not the kind of cavalier attitude that will bode him well as ambassador to the United Nations, where he becomes one of the chief diplomats in our diplomatic arsenal, if you will.

In an article in the New York Times, Elizabeth Jones stated:

I don't know if he's incapable of negotiation, but he's unwilling.

Ms. Jones believed that:

``The fundamental problem,'' if Mr. Bolton were to become U.N. ambassador, would be a reluctance on his part to make the kinds of minor, symbolic concessions necessary to build consensus among other governments and maintain the American position.

In another view by Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and referred to by my colleague from Florida, she stated:

John Bolton may do diplomatic jobs in the U.S. Government, but John is not a diplomat.

Frankly, the role of ambassador requires a diplomat, not someone who is an intellectual bully, not someone who is there to make a point and not to make progress, not someone there to send a message, to deride the work of his colleagues at the U.N.

So I think we have a responsibility on two fronts: First, to assert rather strongly that we are relevant to this process, that we need information, and that executive agencies do not decide what information we need. And second, Mr. Bolton's record to date, his statements to date, his attitude to date suggest he will not be an effective ambassador to the United Nations. As a result, I urge that his nomination be opposed.

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