White House scrambles to salvage nomination of Bolton as envoy to UN

WASHINGTON - The White House yesterday rounded angrily on Congressional Democrats, as it scrambled to salvage the increasingly threatened nomination of John Bolton to be the US envoy to the United Nations.

A day after the Republican-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee was forced to postpone a vote to confirm the tough-talking Mr Bolton to the post, Scott McClellan, President Bush's spokesman, accused the eight-strong Democratic minority on the panel of trumping up "unsubstantiated allegations' against the nominee.

In fact, however, the problems lie not with the Democrats but with the panel's Republican majority - three of whom have voiced doubts as more and more evidence has emerged of Mr Bolton's allegedly bullying behaviour, both in his current job as the State Department's top official in charge of arms control, and during his earlier career as a private sector lawyer.

The last straw came on Tuesday, when George Voinovich, a moderate Republican on the Committee, stunned his colleagues by announcing he "did not feel comfortable" voting for the nominee.

Later another wavering moderate, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, ominously declared that "the dynamic has changed, a lot of reservations have surfaced."

For three weeks already the Committee has been investigating charges that Mr Bolton - a blunt spoken conservative who has often spoken contemptuously of the UN - bullied his subordinates, manipulated intelligence, and even withheld information from the new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Theoretically, if Mr Bolton fails to command a majority on the Committee, his name could be sent for confirmation to the full Senate, where Republicans have a 55-45 majority.

But Democrats, scenting blood, have warned that under those circumstances they might stage a filibuster.

With at least three moderate Senators uneasy about the nominee, Republicans would almost certainly be unable to muster the 60 votes needed to halt debate and bring the nomination to a final floor vote.

- INDEPENDENT