The appointment of the plain-speaking diplomat, who once said the United Nations could lose 10 floors without anybody noticing, is likely to be announced before Bush leaves on Tuesday for his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Bush intends to exercise rarely used constitutional powers to confirm his choice of ambassador while the Senate is on its August break after Bolton failed to win the approval of enough senators for a straightforward vote. The “recess appointment” would allow Bolton to serve until January 2007 when the current session of Congress ends.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said: “It’s a critical time to be moving forward on this. The United Nations will be having their general assembly meeting in September and it’s important that we get our permanent representative in place.”

Bolton’s staunch defence of American interests has won him friends among neoconservatives, who consider it a badge of honour that he has irritated countries in the so-called “axis of evil”. Iran has called Bolton “rude and undiplomatic”; a North Korean spokesman described him as “human scum” and a “bloodsucker” after he branded Kim Jong-il a tyrant.

But other Republicans wonder whether it is wise to send as ambassador to the UN a man who said in 1994: “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States.”

Trent Lott, a senior Republican senator, said a recess appointment would represent a “thumbing of the nose” at the Senate, which would weaken Bolton at the UN.

“Everybody up there will know, in a tough job, that he was not confirmed,” Lott said. “It’s a bad choice and I would recommend against it. But I think they’re going to do it and they’ll have to live with the consequences.”

Republican disquiet deepened when Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, let it be known that he did not approve of Bolton’s style of diplomacy.

During confirmation hearings Bolton, a former undersecretary for arms control, was accused of twisting intelligence and bullying staff who disagreed with him.

However, he is considered a favourite of Dick Cheney, the vice-president, because of his conservatism and hawkish views on foreign policy.

Any doubts that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, may have had about Bolton were publicly shelved last week, when she said America would not be without leadership at the UN at a crucial time for the embattled organisation.

“John is a tough diplomat,” she said. “He has been critical at times of some of the operations of the UN. But frankly, there are reasons to be critical of some of the operations at the United Nations.”

This week promises fresh revelations about the discredited Iraq oil-for-food programme, which has bedevilled the UN and its secretary- general, Kofi Annan.

An independent inquiry into the corruption scandal is expected to release an interim report on Friday.

One of the most persistent critics of the UN, Senator Norm Coleman, who chairs a congressional inquiry into the oil-for-food programme, said last week that the controversy over Bolton’s likely appointment would soon become irrelevant.

The bottom line, he said, was that Bolton had the confidence of the president. “He will speak for the president of the United States. He will speak for America.”

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