Presidential politics 167of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. We shall look more closely at this
disaster in a later chapter.
The World Trade Center disaster also raised questions about the efficien-
cy of the American intelligence services. Inevitably, the question was asked,
‘Could this have been prevented?’ The major agency involved in collecting
and evaluating intelligence was the Central Intelligence Agency, but there
were, and still are, fourteen other separate intelligence agencies in various
departments of the federal government, including the Department of Jus-
tice and the Department of Defense. The coordination of the activities of
these separate bodies to provide effective intelligence and an appropriate
response came under examination and was found to be wanting. President
Bush appointed the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States to enquire into the circumstances leading up to the attack on
the Twin Towers and to make recommendations about how to prevent future
attacks from occurring. In its Report the Commission stated that ‘The agen-
cies cooperated, some of the time. But even such cooperation as there was
is not the same as joint action.’ The Commission made a number of recom-
mendations, including the creation of a Director of National Intelligence to
coordinate the work of the fifteen intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
Despite the opposition of a number of people inside the administration, in
2004 Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act. President Bush appointed John Negroponte as Director of National
Intelligence and implemented most of the Commission’s recommendations.
This involved the creation of the National Counter-terrorism Center to ‘as-
sist in analyzing and integrating foreign and domestic intelligence acquired
from all U.S. government departments and agencies pertaining to the war on
terrorism. The Center identifies, coordinates, and prioritizes the counterter-
rorism intelligence’. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office was established
to provide ‘a single federal organization to develop and deploy a nuclear-
detection system to thwart the importation of illegal nuclear or radiological
materials’. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was appointed
‘to further help ensure that privacy and civil rights are not eroded as we fight
the War on Terror’ and the Terrorist Screening Center was set up ‘In order
to consolidate terrorist watch lists and provide around-the-clock operational
support for Federal and other government law-enforcement personnel across
the country and around the world’. To add to this bureaucratic nightmare,
in March 2006 President Bush created a Center for Faith-Based and Com-
munity Initiatives in the Department of Homeland Security, to ‘identify
barriers to faith-based and other community organizations’ participation in
our programs and activities, and propose ways to remove these barriers and
to better integrate the community into our efforts. As a result, the depart-
ment will more effectively channel the unique resources and capabilities of
faith-based and other community organizations in times of crisis, and on an
ongoing basis, in preparing for catastrophes of all types’. As is so often the