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This may be a sign of things to come. John R. Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, is one of the Bush administration’s most hawkish hawks. Last year he caused a stir by claiming Cuba was developing biological weapons. He’s also nearly blown the lid off northeast Asia a few times since he’s been in office.

Bolton is generally understood to be the neo-cons’ minder and advanced scout over in the wilds of the State Department.

In any case, he was slated to testify before a House International Relations Committee subcommittee Tuesday morning. But his testimony was cancelled at the last minute and then postponed until September. Bolton is something of a WMD maximalist. And when I heard about the cancelation Tuesday morning I was told it was because the White House had decided it didn’t want to send him up to the Hill to face questions which would inevitably turn to Iraq and the intel iffiness.

According to this Knight Ridder article, that was clearly part of the issue. But there seems to have been more to it than that.

According to the article, Bolton was prepared to tell the subcommittee that “Syria’s development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons had progressed to such a point that they posed a threat to stability in the region.” Sound familiar? Apparently it did to many at the CIA and other US intelligence agencies because they flew into something close to full revolt. Clearly, the career people in the intel community are feeling emboldened by the White House’s recent Iraq embarrassments. The CIA alone compiled a list of “objections and comments” to Bolton’s proposed testimony which ran more than 35 pages.

Is the Agency coming around on ‘regime change’ after all?

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