Source of confusion

In an otherwise informative — if overly deferential — piece on Iraq’s shadow over current intelligence community reviews of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, there is this seemingly balanced quotation:

“The intelligence analysts I’ve dealt with have always been willing to engage in debates on their conclusions, but there is top-down pressure to make the assessments come out a certain way,” said John R. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former ambassador to the United Nations in the Bush administration.

The quotation itself is not problematic, or not necessarily problematic. We’re it properly contextual iced, we would have a better understanding of what Bolton is saying here.

By describing Bolton only as the former ambassador to the U.N. and not as undersecretary of state at the time that the Bush administration was cooking the intelligence books on Iraq, we are left with an impression that Bolton is just a diplomat with concerns. He isn’t. He was a major player in pushing us into war and remains a hardened hawk. His comment should have been placed in this context so that we could better understand the backstory that motivates his criticism of “top-down pressure” — which is something he did not have issues with back in 2003.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet