NYT: Mattis Unsure If He Can Work With New NSA Bolton

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has told colleagues he does not know if he could work with newly named National Security Adviser John Bolton, The New York Times reported.

Trump tweeted last Thursday the hawkish former George W. Bush administration official would take over for H.R. McMaster on April 9; the Army lieutenant general will retire from the military, a White House official said.

Bolton served as U.N. ambassador under the Bush administration, and as undersecretary of State in the years leading up to the Iraq War, and had a focus on preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

According to the Times, Bolton had advocated the attack on Saddam Hussein from his post at the State Department during the Bush administration — and defended its aftermath. Over the past three years, he has also advocated bombing Iran, attacking North Korea, and carving a new state out of Iraq and Syria.

And last August, when ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis wrote a joint op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal describing the merits of building economic pressure on North Korea in a policy of "strategic accountability," Bolton said he was "appalled," the Times reported.

Bolton, however, has declared his past comments are "behind me."

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