WASHINGTON, Nov 15: The White House said on Thursday it had reached agreement with key lawmakers to create an independent commission to look into intelligence failures that preceded the attacks on US targets last year.

“It appears Congress is ready to move forward on a strong, bipartisan commission,” spokesman Scott McClellan said, confirming plans to establish a 10-person panel evenly divided between Republicans and opposition Democrats.

Under the accord, US President George W. Bush would appoint the commission’s chairperson, while Democrats would choose the vice-chairperson.

The remaining eight members would be evenly chosen by the Republican and Democrat Senate and House leaders, according to a senior Senator Republican aide.

It would require six votes or an agreement between the chairperson and vice-chairperson to issue subpoenas, said McClellan.

The commission’s report would be released 18 months after its enactment.

The measure could be passed by both chambers of Congress as early as Thursday night or Friday, the aide said.

“This is a decisive victory for the families of September 11 victims and the nation as a whole. Finally we will get a clear clean picture of what government agencies failed, how they failed and why,” Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman said.

But the Senate’s top Democrat earlier Thursday questioned whether US President George W. Bush was winning the war on terrorism at home or abroad, noting that the global effort has yet to snare Osama bin Laden.

“We haven’t found bin Laden. We haven’t made any real progress in many of the other areas involving the key elements of Al Qaeda,” said Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

“They continue to be as great a threat today as they were a year and a half ago. So by what measure can we say this has been successful so far?” said Daschle, whose party loses the majority come January.

His comments came as US officials privately acknowledged that a recently broadcast audiotape attributed to Osama was authentic, meaning the Saudi-born extremist is therefore probably still alive.

If confirmed, the tape would be the first solid proof that the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terrorist strikes that left more than 3,000 dead on US soil had survived the US-led military campaign that crushed his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan.

Daschle and other leading Democrats also questioned why the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the attacks had been dropped from a compromise measure to set up a multibillion-dollar Department of Homeland Security with 170,000 employees.

That bill passed the House Wednesday by a vote of 299-121 and was expected to come to a vote on the Senate floor as early as Friday.

The CIA, FBI and other US intelligence agencies have come under heavy fire for their failures to connect the dots from information flooding in that indicated an impending spectacular terrorist attack last year aimed at causing massive casualties.

CIA chief George Tenet told a congressional hearing here last month that US intelligence, although stretched to the limit after years of budget cuts, had disrupted a series of terrorist attacks prior to the September 11 strikes.

“We never acquired the level of detail that allowed us to translate our strategic concerns into something we could act on,” he acknowledged before a joint House and Senate Intelligence panel.—AFP