Ms. Snowe said she continued to oppose diverting payroll tax revenues to private accounts.

But he says he is mystified about why Mr. Bush is so wedded to the idea of diverting payroll taxes to private accounts.

When Social Security payments begin to exceed income in 2020, workers would no longer be able to divert part of their payroll taxes to private accounts.

Under President Bush's proposal, workers could divert some payroll taxes to personal accounts that could be invested in stocks and bonds.

Allowing workers to divert some payroll taxes to private accounts would leave Social Security short of cash to pay benefits to current retirees.

By far the biggest of these is his plan to privatize Social Security in part and let people divert some of their payroll taxes to private accounts.

Audits found no indication of fraud or evidence that public funds had been diverted to personal accounts, Ms. Weinstein said.

Iraq cut off exports after failing to win authorization to divert some of its oil profits to accounts not controlled by the United Nations.

Money diverted to such accounts would otherwise be available to pay benefits of current retirees and to finance operating costs of other federal programs, he said.

Mr. Soong's credibility was hurt by evidence, released by the Nationalists, that he diverted party money to personal accounts in the past.