CRAWFORD, Texas, Nov 23 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush called on lawmakers to vote as quickly as possible on an intelligence bill bottled up in the House on the weekend, a White House spokeswoman said Tuesday.
"The president has made very clear that he believes the Congress should act on the intelligence bill," Claire Buchan told reporters at Bush's Texas ranch here.
"He has personally been very involved as has the Vice President (Dick Cheney) in urging members of Congress to move forward when intelligence reform."
The bill would put into motion several recommendations of a panel that probed intelligence failures on the eve of September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
The bill which, among other measures, calls for a national intelligence czar, ran into trouble on Saturday after a key congressional ally of the Pentagon voiced objections to the legislation.
"We're going to work very hard on this issue. It is something the president wants to get done," Buchan said.
Bush, who had been attending an Asia-Pacific summit in Santiago, Chile, told reporters late Sunday that he was "disappointed" and said he would work with the interested parties on his return to Washington "to get it passed."
House leaders pulled the bill minutes before a scheduled vote, citing concerns expressed by Duncan Hunter, the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a staunch supporter of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Senior US lawmakers on Sunday blamed "turf wars," mainly involving the Pentagon, for the impasse.
11/23/2004 20:59 GMT - AFP