Mitt Romney adviser and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is no stranger to hawkish rhetoric when it comes to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. In January he called for an outright war, telling Fox news “the better way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons is to attack its nuclear weapons program directly” and, in February, he fanned the flames of war even further, saying, “I don’t think it’s in our interest to stay out” of a war between Israel and Iran.

But while Bolton and his fellow hawks are welcome to assert their own hypotheses about Iran’s nuclear intentions and how the U.S. should respond, the facts about U.S. and IAEA intelligence findings on Iran’s nuclear program are not a matter for debate. Today, Bolton made a completely unsubstantiated assertion about intelligence findings on Iran’s nuclear program, telling Fox News:

Look, if anybody thinks this is for peaceful purposes there are a lot of bridges for sale in New York and the intelligence on this is unambiguous. The International Atomic Energy information on what Iran’s been up to is unambiguous. This is a charade driven by the Obama administration’s need to find something to pressure Israel not to use military force against the Iranian program.

Watch it:

But U.S. and IAEA reports have never shown claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons to be “unambiguous.” In fact, the IAEA has raised questions about possible dual-military-civilian use nuclear technologies but they have not concluded that Iran has decided to restart its nuclear weapons program after its suspension in 2003.

And Israeli and U.S. intelligence reports concur with the assessment that there is no “unambiguous” evidence that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program. In February, Director of National Intelligence told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had doubts about Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon and that “they’re keeping themselves in a position to make that decision but there are certain things they have not done for some time.”

The Associated Press reported in March that, “Several senior Israeli officials who spoke in recent days to The Associated Press said Israel has come around to the U.S. view that no final decision to build a bomb has been made by Iran.”

Furthermore, Bolton’s claim that the U.S. is only playing for time in negotiations with Iran is contradicted by President Obama’s unambiguous commitment to “preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” and assertion that it was “unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” But while the president has outlined the threat an Iranian nuclear weapon poses to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, the Obama administration believes that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis.

But all this probably won’t stop Romney from seeking out Bolton’s advice. “I look forward to consulting with him as we campaign to restore America’s standing abroad and ensure that this century is an American Century,” Romney said of Bolton back in January.

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been all over the map on Afghanistan. He’s gone from wanting to withdraw U.S. troops as quickly as possible to preferring to wait until he gets elected to come down on a position. Despite Romney’s consistent inconsistency on Afghanistan, his campaign website states that “[w]ithdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan under a Romney administration will be based on conditions on the ground as assessed by our military commanders” — what is essentially an open-ended commitment.

Last night on CNN, Republican congressman Dana Rohrbacher (CA) — who’s been in a tete-a-tete lately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai — criticized Romney’s position. “I totally disagree with the governor,” Rohrbacher said:

ROHRABACHER: We should be looking for ways to get our troops out of Afghanistan at a quicker pace, not at a slower pace. We shouldn’t be committing ourselves to another 10 years of military involvement in Afghanistan and we can do that if we worked with all of the Afghan leaders rather than just trying to put all of our eggs in the Karzai basket and trying to force everybody to accept his power.

BLITZER: What Governor Romney says there should be an open-ended U.S. military and financial commitment to Afghanistan. He doesn’t like the timelines, if you will, but he’s even more aggressive in making sure that U.S. troops stay there to bolster that Afghan government and make sure that there’s security there. … What I hear you saying is you disagree not only with President Obama, but with Governor Romney, as well.

ROHRABACHER: I totally — yes, I totally disagree with the governor. If that is indeed his position I would like to talk to him about it.

Watch the clip:

Republicans in Congress have long been at odds on Afghanistan and a poll out last month found that a majority of Republicans say the war there hasn’t been worth fighting. Perhaps that’s why Romney won’t take a firm position and instead wants to kick the can down the road.

This morning on MSNBC, former Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team for being “quite far to the right.” Romney has been “catching a lot of heck from the more regular GOP foreign affairs community. We’re kind of taken aback by it,” Powell said.

Later on the same network, the retried four-star U.S. Army general, referring to Romney’s claim that Russia is America’s “number one geopolitical foe,” had some advice for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee — cut out the hyperbole when talking about foreign policy:

POWELL: I think he really needs to not just accept these cataclysmic sort of pronouncements. I think he really needs to think carefully about these statements because they’re now on the wall for people to see. … Let’s not go creating enemies where none yet exist. Does this mean that we should trust Putin or Medvedev? No. Let’s be mature people and look at the reality of the situation and not find ways to see if we can hyperbolize the situation.

Host Andrea Mitchell noted that Romney is attacking President Obama on his Iran policy, saying he’s “showing weakness.”

“Well I don’t know what Mr. Romney would prefer to do,” Powell said, “The fact of the matter is we need a negotiated solution and the only way you can get a negotiated solution is to talk to the other side.” Watch the clip:

Vice President Biden also recently chastised Romney for his militaristic rhetoric. “[L]oose talk about a war has incredibly negative consequences in our efforts to end Iran’s nuclear quest,” he said, adding that if war with Iran is “what governor Romney means by a ‘very different policy’ then he should tell the American people.”

And if Powell doesn’t know “what Mr. Romney would prefer to do” on Iran, as he said today on MSNBC, neither does anyone else. Romney has no real policy on Iran that differs much from the current administration’s approach. The New York Times reported recently that “when pressed on how, exactly, his strategy would differ from Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Romney had a hard time responding.”

When Maher Arar arrived at New York’s JFK airport in 2002, he was only supposed to change planes and continue his journey from visiting relatives in Tunisia back to his home in Canada. But the routine layover was a fateful one: while briefly on U.S. soil, Arar was snatched by authorities, kept incommunicado and away from lawyers for two weeks, then shipped to Syria. Arar endured a year of captivity and alleged torture at the hands of the brutal Syrian regime. Now, after the Canadian government formally apologized to him five years ago, rights groups are demanding that the U.S. do the same.

Three American groups that oppose torture — the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Amnesty International USA, and the Center For Constitutional Rights — delivered a petition with 60,000 signatures to the White House this week demanding an apology.

In 2007, the Canadian government admitted Arar had been mistakenly pinpointed as an Al Qaeda ally, apologized, and compensated him.

President Obama ended the “extraordinary rendition” program in 2009 and Politifact noted that the Obama administration “has announced new procedural safeguards concerning individuals who are sent to foreign countries” but some rights groups claim those safeguards aren’t adequate.

Citing the requirement for “remedy and redress” in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment — which prohibits knowingly transferring detainees to countries, like Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, that engage in torture — the letter campaign (PDF) asked signees to themselves apologize and then demand the U.S. do the same. An Amnesty press release said:

“It was so painful,” Maher Arar said of the beatings he endured, “that I forgot every enjoyable moment in my life.”

Released without charge and allowed to return home to Canada, Maher Arar received an apology and compensation from the Canadian government for its role in his treatment. But the U.S. government has failed to apologize or offer Maher Arar any form of remedy – despite its obligation to do so under the UN Convention Against Torture and other human rights treaties.

The letter campaign emphasized that additional steps need to be taken for accountability in the Arar case, including more explicit prohibitions on transfer, not relying only on diplomatic assurances about the treatment of detainees before transfers, ending discrimination in “no fly lists” and investigating and prosecuting those who broke the law.

Amnesty also released an infographic — using a mock-up of Arar’s 3-foot-wide, 7-foot-high and 6-foot-deep Syrian cell — highlighting the numbers around his detention: 12 days of incommunicado detention in the U.S., 351 in Syria while enduring torture, and 0 charges filed against Arar. However, there is no figure for the “number of people like Maher Arar subjected to the U.S. government’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ program.” That number? The Amnesty infographic boldly states, “UNKNOWN.”

Former Secretary of State and retired U.S. Army four-star general Colin Powell criticized Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. When host Joe Scarbarough asked Powell if he was “concerned” with Romney because of the “neoconservatives around him,” the former Bush administration top diplomat didn’t hold back, criticizing Romney for calling Russia America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” “Come on Mitt,” Powell said, “think.”

Powell added that Romney’s foreign policy advisers “are quite far to the right”:

SCARBOROUGH: Are you concerned with the foreign policy advisers that Mitt Romney has surrounded himself with. That there aren’t enough sergeants and there aren’t enough people with on the ground experience and we seem to have another Republican candidate who is sort of top-heavy when it comes to neoconservatives around him.

POWELL: I’ve noticed that. I don’t know who all of his advisers are but I’ve seen some of the names and some of them are quite far to the right and sometimes I think they might be in a position to make judgements or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought. For example when governor Romney not to long ago said “The Russian federation is our number one geo-strategic threat.” Well, come on, Mitt, think. That isn’t the case.

And I don’t know whether Mitt really feels that or — [...] He’s been catching a lot of heck from the more regular GOP foreign affairs community. We’re kind of taken aback by it. How could you say that? Look at the world, there’s no peer competitor to the United States of America.

Watch the clip:

Powell’s right. Romney has surrounded himself with foreign policy advisers that are a bit far to the right. Many of them helped push for the war in Iraq and many others are trying to do the same with Iran. Perhaps this is why Romney, as one of his advisers told the New York Times, “doesn’t want to really engage on these issues until he’s in office.”