WASHINGTON – The Sept. 11 commission will recommend creating a new counterterrorism center to coordinate all terrorism-related intelligence but will not propose major changes in the FBI, a member of Congress who has been briefed on the report said Wednesday.

The commission’s final report, to be released this morning, also may provide new details on Saudi Arabia’s role in financially supporting terrorists, although the commission has already said the Saudi government did not fund al-Qaida.

While citing previously disclosed missed opportunities to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the report doesn’t conclude the hijackings could have been stopped, avoids blaming any individual and spreads responsibility among various agencies and administrations.

Although some relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 are furious that no one has been held individually accountable for the attack, a Senate aide said yesterday, “At this point people really want to look forward and don’t want t look back.”

But the report will “come down very hard on the CIA” by recommending the creation of a new counterterrorism center run by a new national intelligence director, Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, said. The CIA has been widely criticized for not sharing information with other agencies and for having an inadequate network of information sources and translators.

An intelligence director would oversee all 13 intelligence-gathering agencies, including the CIA, FBI and other agencies at departments such as Defense and State. That would effectively demote the CIA director, who is considered the nation’s top intelligence official, and weaken the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, and the Pentagon, which oversees about 80 percent of the $40 billion spent on intelligence.

The FBI, which has previously been blamed for paying inadequate attention to memos about possible terrorist attacks with airplanes, does not need a major shakeup. The report does not recommend creating a domestic intelligence agency, similar to Britain’s, which some lawmakers have advocated.

“The commissioners felt that the FBI is moving in the right direction, and that movement can accomplish the task of building in the FBI a division that has the ability to conduct domestic intelligence-gathering,” Turner said. The 10 commission members – five Republicans and five Democrats – were unanimous in supporting the recommendations.

At roughly 600 pages, the final report will run more than twice the length of 17 interim statements issued since the commission began investigating last year what allowed the attacks to occur.

“There are inevitably new facts in a book that’s considerably longer than what we’ve put out to date, but most of the headlines are out,” commissioner Jamie Gorelick said.

Restructuring intelligence agencies would be slow and difficult as agencies fight to keep their authority. No action was taken after a congressional investigation of 9/11 suggested late in 2002 creating a national intelligence director.

Lawmakers recently have questioned whether an intelligence director who is part of the cabinet could act with sufficient independence from the White House.

President George W. Bush will receive the report today. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that the administration is “open to additional ideas” to improve intelligence.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who sponsored a bill creating the commission, will introduce legislation today to enact all of its recommendations. “It’s a gesture to get the ball moving,” an aide said.

In New York, where the city’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center was criticized as disorganized, city and police and fire union officials expect the issue of coordination between fire and police commanders at local emergencies to be among the commission’s most controversial recommendations.

—

(Newsday correspondent William Murphy contributed to this report.)

—

(c) 2004, Newsday.

Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-07-21-04 2143EDT