Rice drops hardliner who scorned Britain's stance on Iran

[emad]

Sunday Telegraph
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 09/01/2005)

John Bolton, one of the most powerful hawks in the Bush administration and a robust opponent of Britain's "softly-softly" approach to Iran over its nuclear programme, has lost his job at the State Department.

Condoleezza Rice, who will be confirmed as secretary of state at congressional hearings next week, rebuffed pressure from conservative hardliners, believed to include Dick Cheney, the vice-president, to promote Mr Bolton as her deputy.


Tough: John Bolton is expected to return to the private sector
Instead, he will leave his post as under-secretary of state for arms control and international security after Dr Rice chose other candidates for her new team.

Mr Bolton, a tough-minded, Yale-educated lawyer, was not available for comment. He is expected to return to the private sector or academic world, although there is speculation that he might join Mr Cheney's staff.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wbolt09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/09/ixworld.html

[rodeodance]

1. umm...she does not like Bolton. very interesting indeed.

[oasis]

2. IIRC, Bolton is a PNACer.

:shrug:Draw your own conclusions.

[devilgrrl]

3. They'll find someone else just as bad...

if not worse.

[pacifictiger]

4. Most surprising coming from Rice.

I got a hint that there is no love lost between Colin Powell and Bolton when I caught a 'live time' sort of off-the-cuff comment on CSPAN by Powell last year - Bolton had contradicted Powells stance on something and Powell basically said - I'm the boss, what I say goes, and Bolton is insufferable - it was his body language that spoke volumes. Maybe Powell had some input to this firing - I've sort of been waiting for it for months.