Here is one of the passages from former intelligence official Alan Foley’s testimony that Doug Jehl portrayed as damning to Bolton in his New York Times piece today. This doesn’t sound outrageous to me, particularly when you realize that interpreting intelligence is an uncertain business and that policymakers SHOULD be probing intelligence analysts about their data and assumptions (my apologies for the long post):

Q: Well, do you — let’s step back for a second. You don’t necessarily remember the specifics of the testimony that Ed’s mentioned, but do you remember occasions when there were problems with Bolton’s office, and that your analyst involved you in trying to resolve it?
Mr. Foley: I can’t point to anything specific, but, you know, it’s normal to have differences in coordination. The reason I mentioned that conversation about the NIO for Latin America is, it seemed me whatever the coordination difficulties were, they had, sort of, escalated to something at the fringe of the acrimonious. But coordination disputes with John, I don’t think were, you know, abnormal; they were usual. And we often had disputes with John, I think.
Q: More so than other people you dealt with?
Mr. Foley: I don’t think so. I mean, there were some guys in the Pentagon who were equally difficult to deal with.
Q: Is this because people were trying to go beyond what intelligence would support, or was it simply because they were trying to get you to declassify things you didn’t want to let out?
Mr. Foley: I think it was a number of things. I think, you know, declassifying stuff that we weren’t comfortable saying was, you know, often an issue. I can’t cite you a specific case, but, you know, that was often the case, that “We want to say this. Okay, well, if we can’t say it this way, can we say it that way?” And you, sort of, end up in one of those negotiations. And, you know, I think, in the case of John, John strongly believed that just because the intelligence community had a conclusion on an issue, that didn’t necessarily have to be his view. Or another way — in other words, John felt he had every right to interpret what the evidence meant and come to a different conclusion than the intelligence community.
Q: But he wanted you to put your stamp of approval on it once he did it, wasn’t that the issue?
Mr. Foley: It’s not that blunt. I mean, he’d sort of say, “Well, I don’t think this means that.” And we said “Well, here’s what we think.” And you, sort of, negotiate back and forth between, you know, what John, or any policymaker, wants to say about a specific issue, based upon their analysis of the subject, and what we considered to be the intelligence judgment, and, you know, that’s a normal type of negotiation you would have with pretty much anybody, I think, who was, you know, relying on intelligence, or drawing on intelligence data.
Q: To your knowledge or recollection, was he involved in this process?
Mr. Foley: I don’t think John personally got involved in any of this. Most of this would be done via his staff, you know, Fred and other folks. It would, I think — you know, John, as the Under Secretary — I don’t think he would get involved in this sort of stuff.
Q: So, you never had a conversation with Bolton about any of these issues.
Mr. Foley: Oh, I don’t know if I’d say I never had a conversation with John about any of these issues. I mean, John and I spoke a lot — and, you know, a lot about substantive issues. Normally, John and I were — you know, it was — I was exchanging information with John about, “Here’s what I know about this,” or, “Here’s what we think about that,” and he’d be asking questions. But I don’t have any recollection of John calling me up and saying, “Goddammit, Alan, you guys are giving me a hard time, and you need to change this.” I don’t remember anything like that.