NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, Aug. 2, 2004

WASHINGTON – President Bush is backing the Sept. 11. commission's recommendation to create a national intelligence director, but not in the White House as the panel had proposed, administration officials said.

"He will indicate his support for a national intelligence director and the establishment of a national counterterrorism center outside the executive office of the president," a senior administration official said.

Bush's decision to embrace these two recommendations, with some changes, is among the first steps the president is taking to revamp the nation's intelligence-gathering system to help thwart terrorist attacks. The commission's report highlighted lapses in intelligence that left America vulnerable to the 2001 attacks.

The subject takes on special currency with the announcement Sunday by authorities that they had uncovered a plot by the al-Qaida terror network to attack five prominent financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J.

Currently, the CIA director not only heads his own agency but also oversees the U.S. intelligence community, which has grown to 15 agencies. But the director has neither budgetary authority nor day-to-day operational control of the other agencies, most of which are in the Defense Department. A national intelligence director would oversee all the agencies.

Bush also is embracing the panel's idea for a National Counterterrorism Center, which the commission envisions as a joint operational planning and intelligence center staffed by personnel from all the spy agencies. But again, he does not want to establish the center inside the White House, the administration official said.

Another senior official, who also demanded anonymity because the president has not yet publicly stated his position, said, "We want to ensure that the intelligence operators and analysts maintain their autonomy," and "that has to be a key consideration at the issue of where you place either of those."

The administration claims it has already taken steps that respond to some of the 40 recommendations the commission outlined in its 567-page report, released July 22, that highlighted intelligence lapses that led to the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The White House has issued its own 20-page report listing actions the administration has taken consistent with the recommendations.

In addition to proposals for the national director of intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center, it said Bush's senior advisers were preparing recommendations on how best to move forward in the following areas: