House Speaker Dennis Hastert pulled the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 off the floor minutes before a scheduled vote, citing concerns expressed by Duncan Hunter, the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

"Duncan was concerned that the proposed reform could endanger our troops in the field, who use real-time intelligence to fight the war in Iraq and Afghanistan," Hastert told reporters.

"We need to clarify it, we need to work on it, we will continue to do that."

Hastert declined to predict when the snag would be overcome, but promised to keep the House of Representatives in session to vote on the bill when it is ready.

The sudden reversal followed an announcement by House-Senate negotiators that they had clinched a deal calling for the enthronement of a national intelligence czar with sweeping budgetary powers.

Under the accord, the czar would have been responsible for directing, overseeing, managing all 15 agencies making up the US intelligence community and would operate separately from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But the agreement meant a reduction of the clout wielded by the secretary of defense, who currently controls up to 80 percent of the estimated 40-billion-dollar intelligence budget.

Under the existing system, the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on electronic communications, the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy satellites operator, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which interprets and analyzes satellite imagery, are managed by the Pentagon.

And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly expressed concern that the proposed reform would hurt US national security if it made it more difficult to channel fresh intelligence to troops on the ground.

Hunter, one of the most conservative members of the US congressional leadership, is a key Rumsfeld ally on Capitol Hill.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said Saturday's collapse has essentially killed intelligence reform for this year and blamed "extremist House Republicans" for lack of cooperation.

"This episode lays bare the intransigent, my-way-or-the-highway approach that infects this House Republican majority, which seems to regard any attempt at bipartisan compromise with derision and scorn rather than as an opportunity for real legislative achievement," Hoyer said in a statement.

Republican House intelligence committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, one of the lead negotiators, expressed disappointment, while Senator Susan Collins said the collapse was the work of "forces in favor of the status quo protecting their turf."

Negotiations to reach a compromise were launched after the Senate and the House earlier this year passed vastly different versions of the bill, loading them with controversial immigration and homeland security provisions.

The accord between the two chambers, hammered out over a month, also called for establishing an effective National Counterterrorism Center to coordinate all elements of counterterrorism intelligence operations planning.

It provided for the creation of an independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Board charged with making sure citizens' rights were not violated in the course of the war on terror.

But the negotiators refused to accept a House provision that essentially barred states from providing drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants, drawing ire of some influential conservatives.

"We want the House version of the drivers' license and document control provisions or nothing," Dan Stein, President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement.

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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