US lawmakers have called for an overhaul of the country's intelligence agencies, following their investigation of intelligence failures in the run-up to the 11 September attacks.

The intelligence community was not properly postured to meet the threat of global terrorism against the people of the United States Senator Bob Graham

The creation of a new cabinet-level director was the key recommendation of the inquiry by members of the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees.

The inquiry concluded that the attacks could have been prevented if only all the clues had been put together and information shared among the numerous intelligence agencies.

The report - together with 19 recommendations - was presented after months of investigation and a series of closed-door meeting. However, the panel's findings on the intelligence lapses will remain classified.

The BBC's Rob Watson in Washington there have been numerous attempts to create an overall "intelligence tsar" since the end of World War II, but all of them failed.

Disagreements

The committee's co-chairman, Senator Bob Graham, said opportunities to understand the plot and break it up were lost because information was not shared.

The committee called for a review of the FBI's role

"The intelligence community was not properly postured to meet the threat of global terrorism against the people of the United States," Senator Graham said.

Many of the committee's recommendations called for structural changes to intelligence agencies.

The committee only recommended that the agencies' watchdogs review the findings and then determine whether to discipline some individuals.

This brought sharp criticism from the Senate's committee's top Republican, Senator Richard Shelby, who in particular singled out what he termed the mistakes of CIA director George Tenet.

"There have been more massive failures in intelligence on his watch as director of the CIA than any director in the history of the agency," Senator Shelby said.

At present, Mr Tenet also heads all intelligence agencies - but in practice, like all his predecessors, he focuses on running the CIA.

But correspondents say the US Defense Department is fiercely opposed to relinquishing control over the National Security Agency, the main military intelligence agency.

Foreign aid?

Other key recommendations include:

• Helping CIA paramilitary units and military special operations forces to conduct joint operations against terrorist targets

• Empowering the newly-created Department of Homeland Security's intelligence activities

• A thorough investigation into whether 11 September hijackers based in the US received help from foreign governments

• Review of whether domestic intelligence should continue to be the responsibility of the FBI or whether a new agency is needed.

The FBI's shortcomings were especially singled out by the committee for not placing sufficient emphasis on preventing terrorism acts.

Two months before the 11 September attacks, an FBI agent in Arizona warned that several Middle Eastern men had enrolled in pilot training programmes - but senior FBI officials paid little attention to his memo.

Senator Graham also said the Bush administration should consider attacking what he alleged were "terrorist" training camps in Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

The White House - which have often prevented the congressional inquiry from gaining access to sensitive intelligence information - has promised to review the recommendations.