Bush backs new intelligence centre, czar

US President George W Bush yesterday endorsed the creation of a national intelligence czar and counter-terrorism centre — his first steps in revamping the nation’s intelligence-gathering system to try to prevent a repeat of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"We are a nation in danger," Bush said as he announced the position with top administration national security figures in the White House Rose Garden. Bush thus embraced, with some changes, two key recommendations of the September 11 commission, which outlined lapses in intelligence that left the US vulnerable to the attack.

The bipartisan panel's most overarching recommendations in a 567-page report were for the creation of a counter-terrorism centre, which the commission sees as a joint operational planning and intelligence centre staffed by personnel from all the spy agencies, and a national intelligence czar.