Democrats reject offer on Bolton documents
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| | JOHN R. BOLTON | AGE: 56; born November 20, 1948, in Baltimore, Maryland
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree from Yale University, summa cum laude, 1970; law degree from Yale Law School, 1974
EXPERIENCE: Undersecretary of state for arms control and international security since May 11, 2001; assistant U.S. attorney general, 1985-1989; assistant administrator for program and policy coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1982-1983; general counsel, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1981-1982; associate at the Washington office of Covington & Burlington, 1974-81; partner in the law firm of Lerner, Reed, Bolton & McManus, 1993-99
FAMILY: Married to the former Gretchen Brainerd; one daughter.
Source: AP
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee offered what he called a compromise to break the impasse over President Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador, but a leading Democrat rejected the deal.
Democrats have said they will block the nomination of John Bolton, currently undersecretary of state for arms control, to the U.N. post unless the Bush administration hands over records of communications intercepts Bolton sought from the secretive National Security Agency.
They say senators have a right to that information in order to make an informed decision on Bolton, who has been accused of threatening intelligence analysts whose conclusions did not match his.
But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said Wednesday that Bolton's requests "were not only appropriate, but very routine."
Roberts, the Intelligence Committee's chairman, said he has run the names of several people past National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, who "assured me that none of them -- none -- are among the names requested by Undersecretary Bolton."
But Sen. Christopher Dodd, a leading Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, rejected the offer.
"For Senator Roberts to decide on our behalf what we should be concerned about is most unusual," he said in a written statement. "I am also rather surprised that he would be publicly discussing any names related to the intercept issue on the Senate floor, given the sensitivity of these matters. We have made the strongest effort to keep any names confidential."
Among the names Roberts said he showed to Negroponte: Carl Ford, former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research; intelligence analyst Christian Westermann; former State Department official Rexon Ryu; Charles Pritchard, former special envoy for talks with North Korea; and three other people he did not name, including a "Mr. Smith."
In a rare move, the Foreign Relations Committee sent Bolton's nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation, and Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio has urged colleagues to vote against Bolton's confirmation.
Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told CNN that Bolton's nomination will remain stalled, "period," until the White House relents.
"This is an arrogance on the part of the White House to tell the United States Senate what they are entitled to or not entitled to," he said. "You will not find anybody out there other than possibly one senator who will tell you that the information we are asking for is unusual or inappropriate or has not been always given in the past."
Bush and other Republicans have criticized the Democrats' tactic, saying that the information Democrats want was given to Roberts and to the Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat, John Rockefeller of West Virginia.
