US intelligence system ‘must be radically overhauled’

The United States intelligence community must be radically overhauled in the face of the ongoing terrorist threat, the September 11 Commission said.

In a much-awaited report, the commission called for the appointment of a national intelligence director and the creation of a national counter-terrorism centre.

The centre would co-ordinate intelligence about terrorist threats, and the director would act as a single accountable head, answerable to the president.

Crucially, the new spy chief would also have budgetary control over the tangle of US intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Defence Intelligence Agency.

But with less than four months to go before the presidential election, many fear it will be next year before the recommendations are implemented.

Roy Blunt, the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, told CNN: “If this had come out in the spring, I would have hoped we could have had by Labour Day (September 6) or so some actual changes to take to the House and Senate floor and put on the president’s desk,” he said.

But a two-month delay in the commission’s final reporting made that highly unlikely, he said.

Government and intelligence officials have said in recent weeks that al Qaida is planning to hit the US hard in the run up to the November presidential election.

Some politicians fear any delay in implementing the September 11 Commission’s recommendations could make the terrorists’ task easier.

The commission chairman, Republican Tom Kean, warned at a news conference to mark the publication of the report yesterday that the US was “faced with one of the greatest security challenges in our long history“.

“Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time,” he said.

“We must prepare and we must act. The al Qaida network and its affiliates are sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal.”

He said it was vital that the commission’s recommendations were implemented quickly.

His comments were echoed by commission member James Thompson.

“If these reforms are not the best that can be done for the American people, then the Congress and the president need to tell us what’s better,” Mr Thompson said.

“But if there is nothing better, they need to be enacted and enacted speedily because if something bad happens while these recommendations are sitting there, the American people will quickly fix political responsibility for failure and that responsibility may last for generations and they will be entitled to do that,” he added.

President George Bush said he looked forward to “working with responsible parties within my administration to move forward on those recommendations”.