The top Republican in the US Senate, Bill Frist, said he could not now guarantee the bill would be rubber-stamped into law this year, despite ongoing US efforts to shut down Al-Qaeda and pacify Iraq.

The intelligence reform bill, which, among other measures, calls for a national intelligence czar, ran into trouble on Saturday after a key congressional ally of the Pentagon voiced objections to the legislation.

House leaders 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 and a Rumsfeld supporter.

Asked why the Republican-controlled House had been unable to pass the intelligence reforms sought by President George W. Bush, Senator Pat Roberts replied: "Some of it is turf quite frankly, some of it is from the Pentagon."

"If somebody doesn't understand that there is a systemic problem in the intelligence community, all 15 agencies, and that we need reform, they're like an ostrich," Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News.

Democratic Representative Jane Harman, an intelligence specialist who also appeared on Fox News, also put the bill's unravelling down to Pentagon lobbying.

"The president, as commander-in-chief, couldn't get the secretary of defense to stop his opposition, which has been ongoing for months and which emboldened some of these House folks to dig in," Harman said.

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

The agreement, prior to Saturday's unwinding, would have led to a reduction in the clout wielded by Rumsfeld, 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.

Senate-House conferees agreed the bill which had been scheduled for the House vote Saturday, afterwhich it would have faced a Senate vote before the president could sign it into law, but following its abrupt withdrawl from the House floor the legislation remains in limbo.

Talking on CBS' Face The Nation, Senate Republican leader Frist signalled the bill might not be approved this year following Saturday's turn of events.

Asked if he could guarantee it would be approved this year, Frist replied: "No, absolutely not."

Frist said lawmakers needed more time to review its contents, and said president Bush would have to spend "significant" capital getting behind the bill to get it passed.

"There is not general agreement between the Pentagon and members of the White House, but hopefully that can be resolved in the next 10 days," Frist said of the stalled bill.

Roberts argued that the bill as currently written would not erode the Pentagon's intelligence capabilties.

"I know that some people care about turf, I know some people obviously care about immigration. I do, too. We can do that at some later point. But this idea that somehow the Pentagon would be hurt by this, that is a canard," Roberts said.

House-Senate conferees reached their compromise after both chambers passed vastly different versions of the bill, loading them with controversial immigration and homeland security provisions.

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