A US congressional committee called today for a new Cabinet-level intelligence director to better protect the nation against another major terror attack attempt that seemed inevitable in the coming months.
The call came in a report released by the House-Senate Intelligence Committee that spent 10 months examining how the US intelligence community failed to block the September 11th attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.
"What our intelligence community needs is the equivalent of an admiral of the fleet," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mr Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat. who said it was "almost a certainty that in the coming months Americans will face another attempted terrorist assault."
The report cited communication and other failures in US agencies that led to key clues being overlooked and information bottled up.
While their inquiry found that CIA Director Mr George Tenet had "declared war on al Qaeda in late 1998," Mr Graham said, "most of his troops didn't either hear that a war had been declared or didn't respond to the trumpet call."
White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer said the administration would review the panel's proposal, but did not embrace it. "We'll see what the reasons they have in this report and we'll take a look," he said.
A special commission headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell also is to study September 11th, but lawmakers urged the White House not to put off their proposals while that commission conducts its review. That panel will report in 2004.