Bush backs intelligence czar

President Bush yesterday endorsed the creation of a national director of intelligence and a comprehensive counterterrorism center, moving quickly to enact two key recommendations issued last month by the September 11 commission.

“We’re a nation in danger,” Mr. Bush said in a Rose Garden press conference a day after the terror alert level for five buildings in New York, New Jersey and the District was raised to high or Code Orange, the second-highest rating.

“We’re doing everything in our power to confront the danger. We’re making good progress in protecting our people and bringing our enemies to account,” Mr. Bush said.

“But one thing is certain,” he said. “We’ll keep our focus and we’ll keep our resolve. We will do our duty to best secure the country.”

Of the two major moves, appointing a new national intelligence director (NID) is likely to be more contentious because it requires Congress to amend the 1947 National Security Act to create the position. The director would oversee the 15 intelligence agencies of the federal government, which the September 11 commission criticized for a fatal lack of coordination and cooperation.

“All the institutions of our government must be fully prepared for a struggle against terror that will last into the future,” Mr. Bush said. “I want — and every president must have — the best, unbiased, unvarnished assessment of America’s intelligence professionals.”

Mr. Bush’s announcement undercuts a recent line of attack by Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, who has endorsed wholesale the voluminous recommendations of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Mr. Kerry, who voted several times to cut intelligence funding during his Senate career, has accused Mr. Bush of dragging his feet on reforming the intelligence community.

At a campaign stop yesterday in Grand Rapids, Mich., Mr. Kerry maintained that the president’s sweeping plan to reorganize domestic and foreign intelligence doesn’t change his opinion.

“If we are at war, we need to do the things that make us safe rapidly, immediately,” Mr. Kerry said. “If there is something that will make America safer, it should be done now, not tomorrow.

“I regret that the president seems to have no sense of urgency to make America as safe as it needs to be,” Mr. Kerry said, adding that the president should “call the Congress back and get the job done now.”

Mr. Bush said he was satisfied that Congress already has begun hearings on the reforms during its summer recess.

“They can think about them over August and come back and act on them in September,” Mr. Bush said.

Later, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., in a briefing with reporters, said he doubted that the laborious congressional committee process would produce a bill quickly “even if they were to come back into session as full bodies next week.”

The NID will neither be a member of the president’s Cabinet nor operate from the White House, Mr. Card said, because Mr. Bush wanted to ensure that the director could avoid “undue pressure” from presidential staffers.

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