Frederick Fleitz

Frederick Fleitz is a Professional Staff Member with the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. From August 2001 until 2005, he was a senior advisor to John Bolton, then Undersecretary of State for Arms Control. (Pdf)

Career
Prior to his time as an advisor to John Bolton, Fleitz was a CIA analyst. Appearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 2005 Fleitz stated that prior to working for Bolton he had been "a CI officer for nineteen years, and I came the, a CI WINPAC, the Weapons Intelligence Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center." (WINPAC is Director of Intelligence Office Weapons Intelligence Non-Proliferation and Arms Control at the CIA). Fleitz explained that Bolton had requested Fleitz be assigned to him in early 2001 "since he had worked with me during the first Bush Administration, I also handled UN issues when he was the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations." (Pdf)

Fleitz played a role in helping draft a May 2002 speech for John Bolton, delivered at a Heritage Foundation event, in which he alleged "that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort." Subsequently in April 2005 Fleitz appeared before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee which was considering Bolton's nomination as US Ambassador to the United Nations. 

Fleitz was on a detail assignment to the U.S. Department of State and served as Bolton's Chief of Staff from 2001-2005. From 2005-2006, Fleitz served as Chief of Staff to Under Secretary of State Robert Joseph. Fleitz has spent most of his professional career following multilateral diplomacy. He has been a delegate to many international and UN conferences, mostly concerning arms control.

Fleitz & Report on Iran's Nuclear Intentions
Fleitz was the principal of three authors of a bipartisan August 2006 report published by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence entitled Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat, an assessment of the threat from Iran and how U.S. intelligence agencies are responding to this threat. However, critics have charged that the report was actually aimed at undermining the assessments of Iran's nuclear capabilities made by US intelligence agencies. The bipartisan report was issued with a letter co-signed by Congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ).

The Iran report received sharply different reviews in the media. While the Wall Street Journal editorial page gave the report a strong endorsement [], the New York Times was sharply critical, referring to the report in an editoral as a "Republican campaign document." In the view of John Prados, the report - both its provenance and timing - "should be read as fresh politicisation of intelligence" designed to "send the message" to the intelligence community that any new estimates on Iran that take "a less alarming view (of the threat posed by Iran) will be deemed suspect." 

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency sent a scathing letter on Septemer 12, 2006 to Rep. Hoekstra, chairman of the House intelligence committee, calling the Iran report "outrageous and dishonest", and arguing that the report contained "erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements." 

Report on North Korea
The Washington Post reported on Sept 14, 2006 that Fleitz was also writing a similar report on North Korea's nuclear programs and that a draft of the report had been leaked to the Post. The Post reported that the draft "includes several assertions about North Korea's weapons program that the intelligence officials said they cannot substantiate, including one that Pyongyang is already enriching uranium." .

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * cooked intelligence
 * Treasongate: Beyond Karl Rove

Report

 * U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Staff Report, "Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States", August 24, 2006.

Books

 * Frederick H. Fleitz, Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and U.S. Interests, Praeger, May 2002. ISBN 0275973670. (The book received endorsements Jeane Kirkpatrick and Charles Lichenstein, both former US Ambassadors to the UN).

Appearance At Senate Foreign Relations Committee Roundatble

 * U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "Senate Foreign Relations Committee Roundatable Discussion", April 7, 2005.

General Articles

 * Sonni Efron, "Senate Panel Postpones Vote on Bush's U.N. Nominee", Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2005, Part A; Pg. 13. (Links only to first paragraph).
 * Dafna Linzer, "Bolton Often Blocked Information, Officials Say", Washington Post, April 18, 2005, p. A4.
 * "Boltin' on Bolton?", National Review Online, Editorial, April 20, 2005.
 * Douglas Jehl, "Released E-Mail Exchanges Reveal More Bolton Battles", New York Times, April 24, 2005, p. A18. (Links to a reposting - scroll down the page)
 * Gary Schmitt, "Memo to Decisionsmakers", April 25, 2005.
 * Rich Lowry, "Bolton E-mails", National Review Online, The Corner, April 25, 2005.
 * Dafna Linzer, "Two Detail Bolton's Efforts to Punish Dissent", Washington Post, April 29, 2005, p. A2.
 * Douglas Jehl, "Bolton's Nomination Is Questioned by Another Powell Aide", New York Times, April 30, 2005.
 * Sonni Efron, "Bolton's a Tough Guy With a Cause", Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2005. (Reposted at Foundation for Defense of Democracies).
 * Douglas Jehl, "3 Ex-Officials Describe Bullying by Bolton", New York Times, May 3, 2005.
 * Glenn Kessler, "Bolton Office E-Mails Spotlight Tensions", Washington Post, May 11, 2005, Page A06.
 * Paul Richter and Greg Miller, "Debate Starts on Bolton's Nomination; A new allegation of unauthorized sharing of intelligence material surfaces against the man picked as U.N. envoy. GOP wants to vote today", Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2005.
 * Richard W. Stevenson, "Leak Case Renews Questions on War's Rationale", New York Times, October 23, 2005.
 * Larisa Alexandrovna and Jason Leopold, "Bolton's chief of staff gave information on outed agent to Libby, lawyers involved in leak case," The Raw Story, November 2, 2005.
 * Warren P. Strobel, "State Department sees exodus of weapons experts", Knight Ridder, February 8, 2006. (Republished on Common Dreams).
 * Al Kamen,, "Check-In Will Have to Wait", Washington Post, April 3, 2006.
 * Dafna Linzer, "U.S. Spy Agencies Criticized On Iran; GOP-Led Panel Faults Intelligence," Washington Post, August 24, 2006.
 * "House Intel Report on Iran: Something's Definitely Rotten", Daily Kos, August 24, 2006.
 * John Prados, "'Fixing' Iran Intelligence,", TomPaine.com, August 25, 2006.
 * Jim Lobe, "Republican Report Hypes Iran Threat,", Inter Press Service, August 25, 2006.
 * "The Ayatollah's Answer", Wall Street Journal editorial, August 25, 2006.
 * Elizabeth Sullivan, "Racheting Up the Iran Threat", The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) August 28, 2006.
 * Dafna Linzer, U.N. Inspectors Dispute Iran Report By House Panel, Washington Post, September 14, 2006; Page A17.
 * NewsMax.com, Hoekstra reponds to IAEA, http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/9/28/102725.shtml?s=ic
 * Kenneth Timmerman, "State of Denial", FrontPageMagazine.com, October 5, 2006, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24778

[[Category:Iran]