June 29, 2007: Former UN Ambassador’s Vision: Overthrow Hussein, Hand out Literature, Leave

John Bolton, the former head of the Bush administration’s arms control agency and the former US ambassador to the United Nations, tells author J. Peter Scoblic that he and his fellow neoconservatives continually warned administration officials of the dangers of “nation-building” in Iraq that would occur if the US kept forces inside that country for too long. He says, “My thought was—and this is exaggerating—we hand ‘em a copy of the Federalist Papers, say good luck, and then we’re out of there.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 229]