Debate Starts on Bolton’s Nomination

Senators launched a long-awaited debate Wednesday on John R. Bolton’s hotly contested nomination as U.N. ambassador, with Democrats leveling a new charge in a last-ditch effort to defeat him.

The start of the debate signaled the final stage of the fierce, 2 1/2 -month partisan struggle over President Bush’s most controversial foreign policy nominee.

Senate Republicans said they hoped to close the debate and vote on Bolton’s nomination today.

But Democrats were considering whether to refuse to end the debate -- a tactic that could threaten a truce reached days earlier on the use of the filibuster.

Confirmation of the conservative, blunt-spoken State Department official seemed assured, though Democrats could succeed in delaying the vote until after next week’s congressional break.

For more than a month, Bolton has faced a rigorous congressional investigation into allegations that he sought to manipulate intelligence and bullied analysts who disagreed with him. His nomination was so controversial that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee forwarded it to the full Senate without a recommendation that he be approved.

In the allegation against Bolton made Wednesday, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said that Bolton might have mishandled U.S. intelligence material.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said that Bolton appeared to have shared information about a National Security Agency electronic intercept with another State Department official “without required NSA approval.”

The agency had directed that “no further action be taken on this information without [its] prior approval,” Rockefeller said in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, adding that he was “troubled” by the allegation.

Rockefeller’s letter came after a two-week review by the Intelligence Committee’s staff of Bolton’s requests to see communications intercepted by the giant eavesdropping agency. He recommended that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee interview Bolton to find out whether he had shared the information with others as well.

Some Democrats reiterated complaints that they could not judge the issue properly while the administration refuses to provide classified documents.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said that a delay in the vote would be a protest against the administration’s failure to share information, and not an attempt at filibuster.

On Monday, senators agreed to a truce brokered by Democratic and Republican moderates over the use of the filibuster on judicial nominations, with Democrats pledging to avoid its use and Republicans agreeing not to support a ban.

The issue outlined by Rockefeller centered on Bolton’s use of his high-ranking position to obtain the names of U.S. officials whose conversations were recorded by the National Security Agency as part of its routine monitoring of foreign intelligence targets. Although Americans often appear in such intercepts, their names are stricken from intelligence reports in accordance with privacy protection laws.

The agency routinely discloses the names, however, in response to requests from intelligence analysts and government officials with appropriate security clearances.

Concerns about Bolton’s requests had triggered a Senate Intelligence Committee review.

Rockefeller and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the chairman of the panel, each issued separate, lengthy letters Wednesday to leaders of the Foreign Relations Committee saying they found “no evidence that there was anything improper” about Bolton’s requests.

But Rockefeller cited concerns with Bolton’s subsequent handling of the information. Officials who obtain names from the security agency are generally barred from further disclosure of the information. But Bolton sought out a State Department official mentioned in one such report “to congratulate him,” Rockefeller said.

Rockefeller said later, during the Senate floor debate, that in mishandling the information, Bolton showed a “cavalier attitude” that was “part of a pattern of ... blatant disregard for an important part of the intelligence process.” This, Rockefeller said, “demonstrates Mr. Bolton’s unfitness for this position.”

Rockefeller did not, in his statement, identify the State Department official, although he was described as subordinate to Bolton. A Senate aide familiar with the matter said that Bolton was congratulating the official because the intercepted conversation made it clear that the official had backed Bolton’s position on the matter being discussed.

“Bolton knows you have to go through special procedures to get this information,” the aide said on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the subject. “It’s not something that should be bandied about as if it were water-cooler chat.”

Rockefeller also said that Bolton’s use of the information to single out a colleague for congratulations “was not in keeping with the rationale” that Bolton gave when making his request to the security agency for the individual’s name. Bolton had said he needed the name to better understand the significance of the intelligence contained in the report.

Roberts offered a similar account in the separate letter he sent Wednesday to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But Roberts differed sharply in his interpretation, saying that Bolton had made the disclosure “in the absence of any guidance” from the security agency or the State Department’s intelligence branch.

Roberts noted that the other State Department official “worked directly for Undersecretary Bolton, possessed the necessary security clearances, received and read the same intelligence report in the course of his duties, and understood that he was the U.S. person” mentioned in the report.

Though defending Bolton, Roberts was sharply critical of the security agency and the State Department for “significant deficiencies” in the way they managed the dissemination of the names of Americans who appeared in signals intercepts.

As part of its review, the intelligence committee found that Bolton had made 10 requests to the agency for the identities of 19 “U.S. persons” contained in signals intelligence reports. All of the requests were granted.

The disclosure that Bolton had congratulated another State Department official in connection with an intercepted communication surfaced in an interview the intelligence committee conducted with Bolton’s chief of staff, Frederick Fleitz.

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Times staff writer Maura Reynolds contributed to this report.