Bush Proposes Security Cabinet Agency

June 6 -- President Bush tonight urged Congress to support a new terrorist-fighting Cabinet department that would consolidate several federal agencies in the war on terrorism at home.

"America is leading the civilized world in a titanic struggle against terror," Bush said. "Freedom and fear are at war — and freedom is winning."

In a nationwide address from the White House, Bush proposed the largest government restructure in decades as he called for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. His address came hours after FBI Director Robert Mueller and an FBI whistle-blower testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a singlepermanent department with an overriding and urgent mission:securing the American homeland and protecting the Americanpeople," Bush said. Read a transcript.

Bush hopes to have the department in place by Jan. 1. He said the purpose of the plan was not to expand government's bureaucracy as some Republicans feared.

"The reason to create this department is not to increase the size ofgovernment, but to increase its focus and effectiveness. The staff of this new department will be largely drawn from the agencies we are combining," Bush said. "By ending duplication and overlap, we will spend less on overhead, and more on protecting America. This reorganization will give the good people of our government their best opportunity to succeed, by organizing our resources in a way that is thorough and unified."

Congress would have to approve the plan and Bush urged Americans to encourage their representatives to support the new Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security would inherit 169,000employees and $37.4 billion in budgets from the agencies it wouldabsorb, including the nation's embattled Immigration and Customsservices. Tom Ridge, who now heads the Office of Homeland Security, is expected to be the president's choice to be the new department's first secretary.