Bush to appoint intelligence chief

President George Bush is backing the September 11 commission’s recommendation to create a national intelligence director, but not in the White House as the panel had proposed, administration officials said today.

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

Bush’s decision to embrace these two recommendations, with some changes, are 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 that they a plot by the al-Qaida terror network to attack five prominent financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, New Jersey, has been uncovered.

Currently, the CIA director not only heads his own agency but also oversees the US 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 Defence Department. A national intelligence director would oversee all the agencies.

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

Another senior official 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.”