Mr Bush ordered Porter Goss, the agency’s new director, to double the number of field operatives and analysts. The CIA is under scrutiny over its failure to predict the September 11 attacks and over the absence of illicit weapons in Iraq.

Mr Bush was responding to recommendations made by the commission that investigated the September 11 attacks. He made his demand as part of a series of executive orders, which do not require congressional approval.

But Mr Bush did not say how the huge undertaking was to be funded, and gave no timetable. The changes should be made “as soon as feasible”. Former CIA officials say that America has about 4,500 spies abroad and doubling their number would take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr Bush also said that CIA officers should present “diverse” views to the Oval Office, after recent claims that Mr Goss, a White House ally, had ordered his staff to shape intelligence to support Mr Bush’s policies.

Mr Goss, a former Republican congressman, intends a huge shake-up at the agency, which in recent months has become openly hostile to the White House. But the timing of yesterday’s announcement appeared to have as much to do with politics as national security. The presidential order was dated November 18, but made public only on Tuesday night.

It raised suspicions that Mr Bush, in publicising reforms he can ask for under his own authority, sought to deflect criticism over his failure to ensure passage of a critical Bill overhauling US intelligence.

The legislation, which would have created a new national intelligence director, the main recommendation of the September 11 Commission, was blocked in Congress last week by conservative Republicans — even though it had bipartisan approval, the support of the September 11 families, and despite pleas from Mr Bush and Dick Cheney, the Vice-President.

The conservative opponents object to the Bill’s intention to remove Pentagon control over 80 per cent of the country’s $40 billion (£21 billion) intelligence budget.

Some critics say that Mr Bush, whom they accuse of being lukewarm about the creation of a national intelligence director, deliberately failed to lobby hard enough to get the Bill passed. Others point to a newly emboldened conservative majority unafraid to defy its President.

Either way, Mr Bush is under pressure to break the impasse. White House aides said yesterday that negotiations were under way to reach a compromise with the congressmen and get the Bill passed.

In a separate executive order, Mr Bush ordered the FBI to provide plans for a “specialised and integrated national security workforce”. The bureau has been criticised over its collection and analysis of information before September 11.

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