White House endorses US intelligence changes

WASHINGTON - US President George W Bush has approved dozens of changes in the nation's spy agencies to better combat weapons of mass destruction, including creating a new centre and moving FBI counter terrorism and intelligence operations into a new unit.

Acting in the face of sharp criticism since the September 11, 2001, attacks, Bush signed off on 70 of 74 recommendations of a special presidential commission and gave US authorities new powers to freeze assets of companies believed to be helping North Korea, Iran and Syria pursue nuclear, biological and chemical arms.

The White House said it will further study three of the recommendations made in March by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, and will not implement one classified recommendation.

"It's a fundamental strengthening of our intelligence capabilities. It's not simply moving the boxes. It's not simply a restructuring," Frances Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, said.

The changes marked another Bush administration effort to shore up intelligence-gathering operations, widely criticised for failing to detect the September 11 plot and for inaccurate prewar assessments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush administration cited the claims that Saddam Hussein had WMD stockpiles as the key reason for the US-led invasion of Iraq. None have been found.

To streamline procedures as recommended by the commission, Bush directed that a new National Security Service be created inside the FBI to combine the bureau's counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence efforts.

Some intelligence experts saw the recommendations as a blow to FBI authority. But FBI Director Robert Mueller said: "I see it as a gain. I do not see it as a diminishment of authority. And I see it as the next step in the evolution of the FBI as it becomes better prepared to address the threats of the future."

Bush also approved of creating a National Counter Proliferation Centre to manage and co-ordinate intelligence activities on the proliferation of the deadly weaponry.

The White House supported leaving the CIA in charge of spies, creating a new position at the spy agency to co-ordinate operations across the intelligence agencies, and also leaving covert action planning at the CIA.

The latter rejected a classified commission recommendation that suggested moving planning of covert operations to the national counterterrorism and counterproliferation centres, Townsend said.

"We believe that the reorganisation at the CIA and the strengthening and placing a senior official at the top of the HUMINT (human intelligence) organisation will meet the same objectives," she said.

Intelligence experts saw the CIA keeping its premier role in human spying operations and holding onto control of planning covert operations as a major victory for the spy agency, which has become embroiled in turf battles with the Pentagon and FBI.

One commission recommendation that the White House said required further study was to hold agencies accountable for intelligence failures on weapons of mass destruction. The commission report said US intelligence efforts on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "dead wrong."

The executive order issued on Wednesday did not mention specific countries. Instead it said it applied to "any person or foreign country of proliferation concern."

A US official said that, for now, the administration is targeting four entities from Iran, three from North Korea and one from Syria.

"By applying these powers against weapons of mass destruction, we deny proliferators and their supporters access to the US financial system and starve them of funds needed to build deadly weapons and threaten innocents around the globe," US Treasury Secretary John Snow said.

- REUTERS