United States: John Bolton, the hawkish Bush administration nominee as US ambassador to the United Nations, faced hostile questions from Democratic senators and got only lukewarm support from Republicans at a highly charged Senate confirmation hearing yesterday.
Mr Bolton was taken to task on his record of dismissive comments about the UN, and on charges that he tried to have two intelligence analysts fired for refusing to clear a 2002 speech alleging that Cuba had a secret biological weapons programme.
The tone was set by the ranking Democrat, Senator Joe Biden, who said: "Frankly, I'm surprised that the nominee wants the job, given all the negative things you've said about it [the UN]."
Senator Barbara Boxer played a video in which Mr Bolton dismissed the United Nations in a 1994 speech to world federalists as only viable when taking its lead from the US.
In the tape he said that if the UN building lost 10 of its 38 storeys it would make no difference, and that "when the US leads the UN will follow - when it suits our national interests to do so we will lead" and when it did not, "we will not lead".
Mr Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, has repeatedly said that the UN is corrupt and ineffective but yesterday he sought to reassure the Senate foreign relations committees that he would work with the world body as US ambassador.
"The United Nations affords us an opportunity to move our policy forward together with unity of purpose," he said.
"Now more than ever, the UN must play a critical role as it strives to fulfil the dreams, the hope and aspiration of its original promise."
He also claimed a friendship with UN secretary general Kofi Annan who had called him, he said, and stated: "Get yourself confirmed quickly."
The Republican chairman, Senator Richard Lugar, noting that the nominee had been criticised as "abrasive, confrontational, and insensitive", said that "in the diplomatic world, neither bluntness nor rhetorical sensitivity is a virtue in itself".
The nomination has proved highly controversial in the US. Last month 59 former US diplomats sent a letter to the committee strongly opposing Mr Bolton, and five Republican former US secretaries of state have lobbied on his behalf.
The most acute questioning concerned the charge that Mr Bolton wanted to announce in a speech in 2002 that Cuba had a biological weapons programme.
He was blocked by Christian Westermann, chief biological weapons analyst at the State Department, who refused to clear the Cuba paragraph as not reflecting intelligence assessments. Democrats alleged that this type of action discouraged analysts from giving politicians accurate information on weapons of mass destruction and showed a willingness to use unconfirmed intelligence to promote his policy goals - a potent charge in the light of false claims made by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq.
Mr Bolton said Mr Westermann had gone behind his back and denied he tried to get him fired. Senator Chris Dodd asked if Mr Bolton "tried to get two analysts removed from their jobs because they disagreed with your intelligence", which would be "dreadfully wrong". The Connecticut Democrat snapped back when Mr Bolton said he had just tried to get the analyst to work on another portfolio.
"What other portfolio? He has one portfolio - biological weapons and chemical weapons."
Mr Bolton said the row occurred not over differences in policy perspectives but because "I thought in both cases their conduct was unprofessional and broke my trust".
Mr Biden also said Mr Bolton had once written that "Clinton notions" of UN peace enforcement and nation-building "should be relegated to history's junk pile".
Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes got Mr Bolton to say he supported the Law of the Sea Treaty and then read out a comment the nominee had written calling it "an illegitimate method of forcing fundamental policy changes" on the US.
Mr Bolton said that this no longer applied, as the Clinton administration had since addressed his concerns, whereupon Senator Sarbanes snapped: "You wrote this article in 2000."
Senator John Kerry piled on the pressure, accusing Mr Bolton of once trying to scuttle secret diplomacy by the UK that led to Libya giving up its weapons programmes and then claiming it as a Bush administration success.
He said that there had been a "huge increase in nuclear capacity in North Korea on your watch. Why should you be rewarded for that?"
Mr Bolton could lose the nomination if one Republican on the committee votes with the minority Democrats.
Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee has refused to say how he will vote.
Mr Bolton's testimony will be challenged later this week by Carl Ford, the official who ran the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.