Political Quotes

“If the Senator will yield, not only the community he worked for, but the entire community. This National Intelligence Officer, who remains nameless because he is undercover, did not give his own opinion. He gave the opinion of what was the consensus of the intelligence community. The Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. McLaughlin, said: No, my guy, my CIA officer is right; Mr. Bolton is wrong, and it is wrong to try to get him fired. In addition to both of these intelligence analysts being backed up by their bosses at the highest level--one at INR, the intelligence operation within the State Department, and one in CIA--in addition to being backed up by them, they got backed up by the policymakers who are their bosses--the Secretary of State of the United States of America and the Deputy Secretary of State of the United States of America--both of whom were superior in terms of authority to Mr. Bolton. So it is Mr. Bolton who was chastised by the Deputy Secretary of State as a consequence of these encounters, because the Deputy Secretary of State said: Hey, look, John, in addition to the analysts being correct, you are no longer authorized to make any speech that is not cleared by me; you are no longer authorized to give any testimony before the Congress that is not cleared by me. So not only were these analysts backed up by their superiors in the intelligence hierarchy, they were backed up by the policymakers.”