WASHINGTON, May 31 - The information that the White House has refused to provide to Congress for its review into the nomination of John R. Bolton includes the names of American companies mentioned in intelligence reports on commerce with China and other countries covered by export restrictions, according to government officials who have been briefed on the matter.
It had been reported that the White House was refusing only to hand over the names of 19 individual Americans mentioned in 10 intelligence reports by the National Security Agency.
The names of the individuals and companies, which remain highly classified, were provided to Mr. Bolton by the National Security Agency in response to requests he made as under secretary of state for arms control. The Democrats who forced the postponement last week of a vote on Mr. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations argued that the Senate should insist on access to the same information.
But the White House has said Congress has "all the information it needs" to make a decision on the nomination, and at his news conference on Tuesday, President Bush dismissed the request for more information as "just another stall tactic by his opponents in Congress."
The administration has permitted the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee to review copies of the 10 intelligence reports, based on communications intercepted by the N.S.A., about which Mr. Bolton requested the additional information. But the names of American people and companies were deleted, and the administration has refused to provide the names to Senate leaders...
...Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Foreign Relations Committee's Republican chairman, had joined Mr. Biden in urging the administration to give Congress the same information Mr. Bolton received. Last Friday, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has been a leading supporter of Mr. Bolton's, suggested that the administration and the Senate might be able to work out a compromise that would allow for a vote...