The White House unveiled a detailed plan on Wednesday to give a new national intelligence director (NID), as recommended by the commission investigating theSept. 11 attacks, strong budgetary authority over the nation's intelligence community.

President George W. Bush intends to give the intelligence director "full budget authority" over the National Foreign Intelligence Program and "the management tools" to oversee the intelligence community and integrate foreign and domestic intelligence, the White House said in a statement.

Bush revealed his plan at a White House meeting with congressional leaders from both parties one day after a bipartisangroup of members of the Congress said they were drafting a bill inthe House and the Senate to enact recommendations made by the Sept.11 panel.

"I will be submitting a plan to the Congress that strengthens intelligence reform ... We believe that there ought to be a National Intelligence Director who has full budgetary authority," Bush said at the meeting.

The plan outlines powers and responsibilities for the NID that are consistent with the Sept. 11 commission report, the statement said.

The NID should be assisted by a cabinet-level Joint Intelligence Community Council, which will help ensure the implementation of a joint, unified national intelligence effort toprotect national and homeland security, and advise the NID on setting requirements, financial management, establishing uniform intelligence policies, and monitoring and evaluating performance of the intelligence community, the statement said.

Under the White House plan, the NID, to act as the principal advisor to the president for intelligence matters on national security, will report to the president, be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and will "serve at the pleasure of the president, and testify before Congress."

The NID will be part of the executive branch, but will not be located in the executive office of the president or serve as a member of the cabinet.

The new intelligence director will have a role in the appointment of any individual to a position that heads an organization or element within the intelligence community, but national intelligence agencies - the National Security Agency, theNational Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and National Reconnaissance Office - will be kept under the Department of Defense, according to the statement.

Bush announced support in early August for the creation of a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center but had not previously openly endorsed full budget and personnel authority of the NID, as recommended by the Sept. 11 commission.

Source: Xinhua