US President George Bush yesterday announced the creation of a counter-terrorism centre headed by a national intelligence director, in the first major shake-up of US intelligence services since their failure to anticipate the 9/11 attacks, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor, in New York
Mr Bush's announcement came as it emerged that the heightened terrorist alert in Washington, New York and Newark came as the result of a major intelligence breakthrough by Pakistan security police that revealed a "treasure trove" of information.
Detailed plans for new attacks in the US - including the use of a hijacked oil tanker as a bomb - were obtained from the computer of a senior al-Qaeda figure captured in Pakistan some weeks ago, according to a Pakistani intelligence official.
Armed anti-terrorist police yesterday patrolled near the World Bank and IMF in Washington and financial buildings in New York and Newark to guard against truck or car bombs.
"We are a nation in danger," Mr Bush said as he announced his approval of two of the main recommendations of the September 11th commission, which reported last month on the intelligence lapses that preceded the 9/11 attacks.
The White House had resisted the recommendations, which were strongly opposed by the CIA, but came under strong public pressure to take urgent action to provide better intelligence in future. Currently the CIA director oversees all US intelligence agencies.
Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry criticised Mr Bush's decision not to implement the new measures until Congress returned in September. "He should call the Congress back and get the job done now," he said.
Mr Kerry also criticised him for ignoring the panel's recommendation to put the office of the director in the White House, as recommended by the Republican chairman, Mr Thomas Kean.
"I don't think the person should be a member of my cabinet," Mr Bush said, flanked in the Rose Garden by senior aides.
Mr Bush dismissed suggestions that the new alert was political. The intelligence was a "solemn re- minder of the threat we continue to face" and "we wouldn't be contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real".
The al-Qaeda figure captured in Pakistan was named as Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan (25), a computer engineer. He had allegedly controlled a coded al-Qaeda communications system until his arrest three weeks ago. It relied on web sites and e-mail addresses in Turkey, Nigeria and north-western Pakistan, according to the Pakistani official. Files were deleted immediately to maintain secrecy and e-mail addresses used only a few times.
In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell to show defiance of the threat, and after early jitters the market showed no ill-effects from the threat.
"Nobody is safe. We live in a different world," he told reporters. "We have to have a level security that everybody has to learn to live with, even though it is expensive and sometimes intrusive."