Security tightened at home

President Bush signed a law creating a vast Department of Homeland Security to prevent terrorist attacks on the US, setting in motion the bi...

President Bush signed a law creating a vast Department of Homeland Security to prevent terrorist attacks on the US, setting in motion the biggest government overhaul in half a century that will take at least a year to complete.

8216;8216;We can neither predict nor prevent every conceivable attack,8217;8217; Bush said at a White House ceremony. 8220;Yet our government will take every possible measure to safeguard our country and our people.8217;8217;

A prime aim of the new department will be to avoid breakdowns in communication between the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies exposed by the 9/11 hijacked airliner attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

While neither the FBI nor the CIA will be part of the new department, it will include a division that would analyse intelligence in hopes of thwarting future attacks.

Bush said he would nominate White House adviser Tom Ridge to head the new agency, taking on what many believe is an impossible job screening out would-be attackers without slowing down some 500 m people. Ridge is likely to win easy confirmation in the Senate.

Bush will nominate Navy Secretary Gordon England to serve as Ridge8217;s deputy at the Cabinet-level agency, which will consolidate all or parts of 22 federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, Secret Service and Border Patrol.

8216;8216;Adjustments will be needed along the way. Yet this is pressing business and the hard work of building a new department begins today,8217;8217; Bush said.

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The new department was initially proposed by Democrats and opposed by the White House. Bush later offered a similar plan and made it a central theme in the November 5 election, in which his Republican Party gained control of the US Congress.

Bush will submit a reorganisation plan within the next 60 days. Only after 90 days from receipt of that plan, agencies can be transferred. The administration has a year to consolidate the two dozen federal agencies.

The President will have broad authority to hire, fire and transfer workers at the department in the name of national security. That flexibility, opposed by most Democrats and their allies in organised labour, was the biggest hurdle to passage. Reuters