Bush Urges Aides to Speed Up Review of 9/11 Proposals

President Bush tried to seize the initiative on intelligence reform Monday, meeting with aides and urging them to accelerate their review of proposals issued by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

The president, who is keeping out of sight at his Texas ranch during the Democratic National Convention, used a video link to take part in the meeting at the White House that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Cheney joined the call from Jackson, Wyo., where he was campaigning.

“The president has asked the group to fast-track their review and the implementation of the recommendations,” White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan told reporters during a briefing in Crawford. “To the extent that there are some recommendations that could be acted on sooner rather than later, the president could certainly act within days on some, obviously longer on others.”

Buchan said the president has been reading the commission’s 567-page report and expects to be in daily contact about it with Card, who is heading the White House review.

Cheney said that he was halfway through reading the report, calling it “engrossing.”

“I don’t agree with absolutely everything in it,” he said without elaborating.

The president has been on the defensive since the commission released its final report Thursday, in which commissioners listed 41 reforms they described as urgent to prevent future terrorist attacks like those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

Chief among them is a proposal to unite 15 intelligence agencies under a single national director for intelligence. Another is to create a powerful, interagency counterterrorism center that would have more money and power than the current center.

Bush gave the proposals a lukewarm response, pledging only to review them. Some of his top advisors were even less effusive; the CIA’s McLaughlin has described a national intelligence director as unnecessary. And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has said that many of the functions of the proposed counterterrorism center are already being done by an integrated terrorism reporting office created after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Members of Congress have been pushing the president to act more quickly than he initially wanted. The Senate may hold hearings as early as next week. Several House committees are also planning hearings; the first, by the Homeland Security committee, will be held the week of Aug. 16, congressional staffers announced Monday.

Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, has added to the pressure on Bush by fully embracing the proposals.

“They are playing catch-up,” one Kerry staffer said. “It’s almost a 180.”

Buchan said Bush was reviewing the commission’s recommendations based on his three priorities: improving human intelligence, improving the use of technology in intelligence and improving coordination of intelligence agencies. That suggested the White House is likely to edit or reorder some of the proposals.

Buchan said the White House was also trying to analyze how many of the proposals could be implemented by presidential authority alone and how many would need congressional action.

Times staff writer Richard Simon in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.