Washington ? House Republicans plan to follow President Bush’s lead and reject the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendation to strip the Pentagon of control over its spy shops in favor of a new national intelligence director with hiring, firing and spending control.

The White House gave Congress legislative language Thursday that detailed its ideas about a national intelligence director. The House’s majority Republicans will use the administration version as their starting point, said Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

“The administration’s viewpoint will be the driving force … in the House bill,” Roy said Friday. “It may not be 100 percent the way they sent it, but it will certainly move in that direction.”

Senate leaders want a stronger intelligence director.

“The administration’s bill is not as comprehensive as the proposal we have already announced, but it nevertheless helps to maintain momentum toward getting comprehensive intelligence reform accomplished this year,” Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the Senate Governmental Affairs chairwoman and ranking Democrat, said in a statement.

The Sept. 11 commission recommended creation of a national intelligence director to control almost all of the nation’s 15 intelligence agencies, saying the agencies did not work together properly to stop the 9-11 attacks on New York City and Washington. They also endorsed giving that position full budgetary control and hiring and firing powers to make sure the spy agencies listen to the director’s orders.

Officials in the White House, the House and Senate have said the military should maintain control of intelligence agencies that provide the Pentagon exclusively with information. That would leave the intelligence director control over only nonmilitary intelligence.