WASHINGTON – A new government clearinghouse for intelligence on terrorist threats begins operations Thursday.
The Terrorist Threat Integration Center (search), announced by President Bush in his State of the Union address, is designed to bring together terrorism data from the CIA, FBI and elsewhere in the government, analyze it, and distribute reports and warnings.
"We're trying to make sure we have the best insights possible that we can provide to those agencies and departments that would need to then act upon it," said the center's director, John O. Brennan, on Wednesday.
It will produce daily reports for President Bush and other officials on the terrorist threat, said Brennan, a veteran CIA (search) officer who was appointed to the post in March. It will neither collect original information nor conduct counterterrorism operations.
About 60 officials from the CIA, FBI, the military, and the Department of Homeland Security (search) are on the center's staff. That number is expected to grow to a few hundred.
The center is housed for now at the CIA campus in the northern Virginia suburbs but will move into its own headquarters next year.
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