Bush Concerned About Sept. 11 Congressional Probes

FORT MEADE, Md. (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) expressed concern on Tuesday that congressional probes into the Sept. 11 attacks might take government experts away from their central job of preventing another attack.

"What I am concerned about is tying up valuable assets and time and possibly jeopardizing sources of intelligence," Bush said as congressional hearings were beginning on Capitol Hill into the failure of U.S. intelligence to thwart the attacks.

Bush made the comment to reporters as he toured the headquarters of the top-secret National Security Agency, a massive intelligence-gathering operation that essentially eavesdrops on the world.

The NSA is located at the Fort Meade Army base, a sprawling and heavily guarded military facility between Washington and Baltimore.

Bush gave a pep talk to employees that was closed to the press. The NSA work force represents an unusual combination of specialties: analysts, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, linguists, computer scientists and researchers.

Bush told reporters it was clear the FBI (news - web sites) and the CIA (news - web sites) were not communicating properly before Sept. 11 but that the two agencies are now in much closer contact. One of the main criticisms of the U.S. security agencies has been that they failed to share intelligence.