Bush praises 'constructive' 9/11 report

US President George Bush praised as ”very constructive” the recommendations in the September 11 report, though his administration has reacted coolly toward a key proposal to establish a Cabinet-level national intelligence director.

Thomas Kean, Republican chairman of the independent commission that probed the attacks, and Lee Hamilton, Democratic vice chairman, formally handed Bush a copy of the independent commission’s report in a Rose Garden ceremony.

Bush had fought the creation of the panel, resisted the release of some documents and battled against letting national security adviser Condoleezza Rice address the panel. But he embraced its work today.

Bush called the report’s recommendations “very constructive” and said the commission had “done a really good job of learning about our country, learning what went wrong prior to September 11 and making very solid, sound recommendations about how to move forward”.

“I assured them that where government needs to act, we will,” Bush said.

The report’s primary recommendation is for a major overhaul of the nation’s intelligence community, including the creation of a Cabinet-level intelligence director with authority over the CIA, FBI and other agencies.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday, “I don’t think you need a tsar. We already had one level of bureaucracy that we don’t need.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to say how Bush viewed specific recommendations in the report, or how long Bush would take to study them.

He was asked repeatedly about the central recommendation on an intelligence tsar, but remained non-committal.

The administration largely viewed the report as an affirmation of policies Bush has put into place since the attacks, he said.

Asked whether Bush believed his administration could have done anything differently in the months leading up to the attacks, McClellan said the report spread the responsibility over several presidencies.

“The threat was emerging and building for over a decade,” he said.

Questioned about whether Bush had fully grasped the terrorist threat before the attacks, McClellan said: “You’re sitting here trying to play a blame-casting game. That’s not the purpose of the report.

"The report points out that the blame lies squarely, lies squarely with al-Qaida.”