UNITED STATES

The US Secret Service director has told lawmakers she takes full responsibility for the serious breach of WhiteHousesecuritywhen an army veteran with a knife climbed the fenceand made his way into the executive mansion before he was tackled.

Julia Pierson also told a committee there have been six fence-jumpers this year alone, including one just eight days before the latest intrusion.

Ms Pierson was testifying before the House oversight and government reform committee in her first public accounting of the episode.

The army veteran, Omar Gonzalez, made it much further into the White House on September 19 than previously disclosed bytheembattled agency assigned to protect president Barack Obama.

US newspapers reported that Gonzalez ran past the guard at the front door and into the East Room, which is about halfway across the first floor of the building.

He was eventually tackled by a counter-assault agent, according to newspaper reports.

In the hours after the incident, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told reporters the suspect had been apprehended just inside the North Portico doors of the White House.

The Secret Service also said that night that the suspect had been unarmed – an assertion that was revealed to be false the next daywhenofficialsacknowledged Gonzalez had a knife.

Getting so far would have required Gonzalez to dash through the main entrance hall, turn a corner, then run through the centre hallway half-way across the first floor of the building, which spans 168ft, according to the WhiteHouseHistorical Association.

Ms Pierson told the committee that the latest security breach was unacceptable and added she would make sure it “never happens again”.

Secret Service agents on the roof of the White House