Reply #34: Individuals liked him, though. Morale amongst the rank and file, and the

[MADem]

careerists, was reasonably good. When he was pushed out the door (and that IS what happened), people cried.

The workers knew that Powell could only do what Cowboy and Big Dick permitted him to do, but one thing that Powell did, and did fairly well, was advocate for, and protect, his worker bees. Rice didn't do that.

Added to Powell's woes was that dickhead Bolton, who had "ideas above his station" and wanted to be the arbiter of what information Powell, and later Rice, were "allowed" to receive--he often tried to prevent them from getting key material, which required information providers to have to "go around" him. A real asshole, that Evil Captain Kangaroo pervert--it doesn't take a rocket scientist, either, to figure out who the "two officials" are in this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61304-2005Apr17?language=printer

John R. Bolton -- who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton.

In some cases, career officials found back channels to Powell or his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who encouraged assistant secretaries to bring information directly to him. In other cases, the information was delayed for weeks or simply did not get through. The officials, who would discuss the incidents only on the condition of anonymity because some continue to deal with Bolton on other issues, cited a dozen examples of memos or information that Bolton refused to forward during his four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

fTwo officials described a memo that had been prepared for Powell at the end of October 2003, ahead of a critical international meeting on Iran, informing him that the United States was losing support for efforts to have the U.N. Security Council investigate Iran's nuclear program. Bolton allegedly argued that it would be premature to throw in the towel. "When Armitage's staff asked for information about what other countries were thinking, Bolton said that information couldn't be collected," according to one official with firsthand knowledge of the exchange.

Intra-agency tensions are common in Washington, and as the undersecretary of state in charge of nuclear issues, Bolton had a lot of latitude to decide what needed to go to the secretary. But career officials said they often felt that his decisions, and policy views, left the department's top diplomat uninformed and fed the long-running struggles inside the agency.