Some of the information that the White House has refused to provide to Congress for its review of the nomination of John Bolton includes the names of American companies mentioned in intelligence reports on commerce with China and other countries covered by export restrictions, say government officials who have been briefed on the documents.
It had previously been reported only that the White House was refusing to hand over the names of 19 American persons mentioned in 10 intelligence reports by the National Security Agency.
The fact that the documents also included the names of American companies, and that the subject had to do with possible violations of American export restrictions, provides a new clue as to why the White House might be rebuffing the congressional requests.
The names of the Americans and the companies remain highly classified, but they were provided to Bolton by the National Security Agency in response to special requests he made as under secretary of state for arms control. The Democrats who forced the postponement last week of a vote on Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations argued that the Senate should insist on access to the same information that was provided to Bolton.
But the White House has said that Congress has "all the information it needs" to decide on Bolton's nomination, and at his news conference on Tuesday, President George W. Bush dismissed the document request as "just another stall tactic by his opponents in Congress."
The administration has allowed the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee to review copies of the 10 intelligence reports, based on conversations intercepted by the National Security Agency, about which Bolton requested the additional information. But the names of American people and companies had been deleted from those reports, and the administration has refused to provide Senate leaders with the names, even though they were obtained by Bolton.
The government officials who described the intelligence reports declined to speak for the record, citing the classified nature of the documents and the extraordinary political sensitivity surrounding them. They would not say what countries other than China might have been the subject of the reports, but noted that Bolton's responsibilities also included monitoring efforts to prevent Iran, Libya and other countries from acquiring dangerous weapons.
The officials included both proponents and critics of Bolton's nomination, who said they wanted to provide the public with a clearer picture of the nature of the dispute between Congress and the White House. The officials did not know or would not say which American companies might have been mentioned in the documents.
As under secretary of state for arms control, Bolton had responsibilities that included efforts to enforce sanctions designed to combat problems posed by weapons proliferation. Illegal trade with China was a principal focus of his attention, but he was also the senior official responsible for the Proliferation Security Initiative, an effort to enlist countries around the world in intercepting suspicious shipments.
The senators who were briefed about the intelligence reports by General Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, said in separate letters last week that Bolton had obtained access to what they described as "American persons identities." But the government officials who described the documents said that term was a blanket term used by the National Security Agency that encompasses the names of American business entities as well.
The senators, Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the panel, both said that they had concluded that Bolton had acted properly in requesting the information from the agency. Both senators said they did not need to know the names obtained by Bolton to reach that conclusion.
But Rockefeller questioned whether Bolton might have improperly shared the names with others. Senator Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, cited the administration's refusal to provide the names to Congress in persuading 39 other Democrats and one independent to block until at least next week any vote on Bolton's nomination.
