WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhuanet) -- US President George W. Bush said Thursday that the US intelligence community needs "fundamental change," one of the key recommendations a presidential commission assigned to look into the intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war made in its final report.

    "The central conclusion is one which I share. America's intelligence community needs fundamental change," Bush said at a news conference after receiving the report in a meeting with commission members.

    Bush said he had directed Fran Townsend, his homeland security adviser, to review the commission's finding and "to assure that concrete actions are taken."

    The commission, set up by Bush a year ago under increasing pressure to look into the apparent US intelligence failure before the Iraq war, criticized the 15 intelligence agencies for their "major intelligence failure" in its final report.

    It said the intelligence community was "dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Also, it said the flaws "are still all too common" two years after the war and the intelligence community knows "disturbingly little" about the nuclear programs of America's foes in the world.

    It made more than 70 recommendations to prevent future intelligence failure, saying "dramatic change" was needed. "We need an intelligence community that is truly integrated, far more imaginative and willing to run risks, open to a new generation of Americans and receptive to new technologies," it said.

    The commission recommended that John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, be given broader powers for overseeing the nation's spy agencies. It also suggested the creation of a new national nonproliferation center to coordinate the fight against weapons of mass destruction, and the establishment of a counterterrorism unit within the FBI. Enditem